The show must go on
by julyisfree
Summary: After the last scene the screen goes black but our heroes still have stories to tell. Revelations, alliances and new threats arise, how will everyone react? Post BNW. Chapter five added.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** The show must go on.

**Pairings:** Peter/Emma; Sylar/Claire; Noah/Lauren; Ando/Kimiko; Samuel/OC

**Warnings:** Strong language, violence, blood, and a few OC's.

**Summary:** After the last scene the screen goes black but our heroes still have stories to tell. Revelations, alliances and new threats arise, how will everyone react? Post BNW.

**A/N: re-edited and re-vamped a bit. This was my summer project (sort of) hope someone enjoys it!**

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Heroes; if I did, I would have given the series a proper ending *_*

_Italics are thoughts._

**CHAPTER 1: THE SHOW MUST GO ON**

_Another hero, another mindless crime_

_Behind the curtain, in the pantomime_

_Hold the line, does anybody want to take it anymore_

_The show must go on,_

_Inside my heart is breaking_

_My make-up may be flaking_

_But my smile still stays on._

"_The Show Must Go On", _by_ Queen_

The first thought that crossed her bewildered mind was: _oh shit._

Then:_ that girl should be dead._

And finally:_ I will win an award for this._

The baffled journalist, Helen Ribb, was only a few feet from the girl; the girl who was now settling what appeared to be a _rib_ from her torso back into place. Leaning over in amazement, she shook her head; the words left her but she had to say something, _right_? After all, years of study and experience in the field of journalism should be helpful in a time like this - a significant moment for all of humanity and a clearly defining moment in her career.

"Uhm… are you, like, for real?"

_Should_ being the key word. _Perfect! Now I will never get my place as co-host_, she shook her head in disappointment.

The girl gave her what appeared to be a funny look laced with annoyance.

"Yes I'm real and before any of you ask, I´m one hundred percent human… Only that I heal from any injury; that's what I do…"

People surrounded the girl expectantly. She shifted her weight from one foot to another, overwhelmed. She now lacked the initial confidence with which she had given her speech just moments ago. The petite blonde also seemed to be looking for someone in the crowd. _'She is not alone,' _Helen thought. _There were people with her before, maybe she is part of a group or something,_ she thought and clicked her tongue.

"Are there are _others_ like you, Miss Bennet?" she cocked her head; now firm in her line of thinking, _Co-host, here I come._

The girl, Claire, seemed to lose all the color from her dirty face with that one question. She once again attempted to find someone in the sea of faces. _I got you. _Helen was inwardly grinning.

"Well… I´m, I mean-"

Before she could give a proper response, a new figure appeared in Helen's line of vision; a man with tousled hair. He grabbed the girl's shoulder and gave her a lopsided smile. Then he turned from her, all seriousness as he addressed the journalists congregated before them.

"Sorry, no more questions," he simply stated and turned to leave with the girl.

Helen wasn't going to have any of that. The other reporters started to disperse but she ran behind the pairing. "Hey, I wasn't talking to _you_!" She shouted and tried to grab the girl's arm. She wouldn't let anyone ruin the exclusive interview. Suddenly another man appeared before her; he was taller and lankier that guy number one. He had bigger eyebrows too, but that only added a more threatening appearance.

"Didn´t you heard? _The show is over,_" he quipped, nonchalantly, waving his hand.

"Hey! We _represent and express the will of the masses_, you can´t do this!" She said fiercely, advancing on him.

"And we are _expressing_ our desire to not talk to you, so _back off._" He bore a glint of something menacing in his eyes. Infuriated beyond the limits, Helen turned her head an inch, but her eyes never left the rude man.

"Frank, are you recording this?" She asked through clenched teeth; she didn't receive a verbal reply. Exasperated, she turned. "Frank! I asked you a question!" She addressed her cameraman more directly; what she saw there did nothing to help improve her mood.

"I don't know what happened…" Frank babbled. Looking down, she stared at the remaining _parts_ of his camera lying only a few feet from where he stood.

"You _threw_ the camera, idiot!" Helen couldn't believe her luck; here she was, facing what could be a defining moment in her career - _not just only my career, this is a defining event in world history; shit! The history books will have my name in it and it will be pathetic all because of Frank - _with a cameraman who can't even hold his camera. She felt like throwing a tantrum but she refrained; that would not help much. Frank continued to babble away.

"I swear-I didn't. One moment I was there recording everything, and the next the camera just _flew_ out of my hands." He shook his head, staring wide eyed at the floor._ Of course; not only is he incompetent but he is also wasted._ Helen gripped the microphone still in her hand.

"Go there and pick it up, maybe we can make it work; we're _losing_ valuable seconds here!" She yelled, taking a breath she tried to regain some sort of semblance again. She looked over her shoulder but what she found was _nothing_.

No super girl.

No lopsided-smile man.

Not even the rude guy.

NOTHING!

She pivoted in her place. T_his can't be right; they have to be here somewhere,_ she thought, searching everywhere. Her face fell; to her dismay, the two men and the girl were gone. "They can't just _disappear_ into thin air?" She frantically said and turned to Frank again. "Right?"

Frank looked at her with more questions than answers in his eyes; his tired face was pulled into a deep frown. Certainly after the events of the night he seemed to be unsure of life in itself. Helen cried in frustration as she wailed, "There goes my promotion!"

Frank agreed with her statement.

* * *

><p>Reality crashed over them like a truck<em>.<em>

The first to recover from the sudden change was Peter. Contrary to the others, he did have a little more experience in the motions of space travel.

With a relieved smile, he took in the little Japanese man's appearance; the same that had proved to be an invaluable asset in more than one adventure and that was currently holding his arm. Hiro wasn't slouching anymore, Peter noted. His cherubic face had lost the sickly tone that had been a source of worry not so long ago. The old Hiro was back and at his side, Ando stood proud.

"Hiro, Ando," Peter greeted them both. "You have no idea how _glad_ I am that you two are here! That woman was a pain in the ass." There was a reason why he didn't like to attend Petrelli socials functions – journalists were not his forte. "I owe you both one, buddies."

The time traveler released his hold on Peter's arm and bowed his head. "No problem, Peter, it was my duty." He briefly smiled but his shoulders were tense, betraying his true state of mind. He turned to Sylar, who had opted to remain inconspicuous as he tried to blend into the shadows around them. "I have to ask what's _he_ doing here?" It was clear that he wasn't going to be addressed directly by Hiro.

"It´s all right, none of you need to worry about him." Peter tried to reassure them. "He is here to help."

Ando had been silent but in the light of the situation he decided it was time to intervene.

"Peter, he is a _murderer;_ he cannot be trusted!"

The paramedic grimaced. For him, it was easy to understand but they had not spent the last five years getting to know the man behind the monster like him. For them, Sylar continued being the bogeyman.

Before he could say something, his newest friend spoke. "I understand you all have reasons to be wary of me," his voice was soft, "I mean after all I did, who wouldn't?" Sylar seemed to be battling a war with himself as he passed an agitated hand through his dirty hair. "I know it's not much but for what little it could mean, I'm sorry," Sylar said.

He wasn't expelling an evil laugh or slicing flesh with his finger like a claw. Much to Ando's surprise, his voice held a hint of sorrow. _Is he telling the truth?_ Ando shook his head. _It can't be._

"I'm a different man now; I'm trying to correct my mistakes. If all of you could just give me a chance, I promise you will not regret it."

If Ando didn't know any better he would have said that Sylar was really begging for acceptance _Could it be true? Is he doing the hero thing now?_ Hiro shared a glance with him before he could make a more verbal judgment on the subject and Ando nodded to let him talk.

"We have all suffered the consequences of your actions at some point," Hiro said in a grim voice. Sylar dropped his shoulders and looked down, remembering all the horrible things he had done. He knew he deserved the glares and hate but he wanted the opportunity to make amends, to do right. He didn't know what he was expecting before. The CEO of Yamagato Industries continued. "But some of us have also seen you doing good." Hiro thought about how the same man in front of him had saved Charlie in the past. Sylar casted a look at him again. "True virtue is in those who stop and recognize the flaws of their actions. I must warn you the path of a hero isn't one easy to walk; are you willing to put the needs of others before yours? To confront evil? To help doing the right thing?"

He was all gravity and stiffness as he spoke; Sylar looked astonished. He had expected yells, an outburst of utter rejection; was this man serious? Apparently so because he wasn't laughing in his face or throwing snarky comments, he just stood there waiting for a response, simple as that. Shaking off his initial stupor, he nodded with equal seriousness."Yes I am."

"Then welcome to the team." Hiro stretched out his hand for the other to shake smiling reassuringly at him.

The watchmaker took it between his own and the tiniest of upwards curvature show on his lips. The tension in the air seemed to dissipate with the gesture. This sensation was a new one, the camaraderie that rolled out from these men, otherwise strangers but not in this time; in this reality they became a team, a group united for nobles causes.

And now he was part of it; it was a feeling that he could get used to. Ando bit his lip. He wasn't so sure about this new development but he figured that if his dearest friend could give Sylar a chance, then he could do it too. _Like a probation time_, he thought, giving a nod to the apparently-redeemed serial killer.

"Okay, but I'll be watching you." Still, he felt the need to point that out while trying to look intimidating but not doing a very good job at it. Sylar shook his head amused.

"It´s all right, Ando; I guess I can handle that." _It is a start_, Sylar thought.

Peter witnessed the whole scene with a knowing smile, happy that his friend was finally getting someone's approval, a purpose, and a place to belong.

It was a brave new world for sure.

* * *

><p>Claire was in shock.<p>

After making what could probably be the most important decision on her life, she was now, only minutes after her dip from the Ferris wheel, witnessing one of the most surreal moments she had ever seen.

_Sylar, a part of the good guys? I must have beaten my head much harder than I thought._

She felt nauseous, even with her regeneration intact.

It had all started wrong. First when that pesky reporter had begun to ask questions; very _inquisitive_ questions. Claire blanched. She wasn't sure if she had the right to reply. After all, she had shown her ability to the world, yes, but ultimately it was her decision to do so under the circumstances she wanted. Claire didn't want to give information about other specials.

So when she saw Peter, she felt a soothing cloud of relief encircling her. Mostly because it stopped the woman from asking more questions but also because, with his crooked smile, Peter was offering her something – reassurance. He was proving her that in a sea of faces, she had people on her side. Her dad had left her alone and she was sure to mourn his sudden disappearance later but as for now, Peter had shown up; her hero. She relished in the strength that, until then, Claire had not realized she'd lost.

Of course, that feeling of security didn't last long when she saw another familiar figure approaching.

Sylar was there too.

Not only was he there, but he was also trying to separate the journalist from her side. The nausea had started just in that moment.

_What the hell is he doing here?_

Then the camera flew out from the hands of the cameraman with the mere movement of his finger, so much like he had always done. Hiro and Ando appeared out of nowhere, teleporting all of them to some forest, God only know where, all in the blink of an eye.

The last thing Claire heard were the cries of the journalist to her subordinate. She didn't sound happy. Of course teleportation did nothing to improve the impending nausea she was feeling. But what was the straw that broke the camel's back was definitely the exchange that happened next.

Peter saying Sylar was now on their side.

Nausea.

Sylar asking for forgiveness and an opportunity to prove he'd changed.

Double nausea.

Hiro an Ando accepting that and shaking hands with the enemy.

Triple nausea.

She felt her knees give away under the weight of her body and her vision darkened. Regeneration be dammed, she could still feel sick. Luckily Peter was still holding her by the shoulder and was able to catch her before she hit the ground.

"Claire, are you okay?" Peter asked, concern dancing in his eyes.

"Yeah, I'm feeling better now." She was slowly recovering her strength; no doubt her ability was in full swing by now.

"You are pale; did you eat today?" It was endearing in some odd way. She didn't have her dad but instead received a paramedic uncle. Claire grimaced, remembering how her day had been.

Locked in a trailer with said dad on the verge of death.

Ruining Samuel's plan of doom.

Jumping from the Ferris wheel in front of a crowd.

Listening to the emo-serial-killer's apology.

_Definitely no time to eat anything_, she thought bitterly.

"No I didn't eat but believe me that is the last of my worries right now," she replied, glaring at the killer who was standing a few feet away from her. Sylar felt himself shrinking from the power of her gaze, so full of bitterness of unadulterated hate. He looked away, uncomfortable.

"Listen Claire," Peter said, diverting Claire's attention from his former enemy. "I know this seems very strange to you, but it has been a very stressful day for everyone here and we have yet to talk about what you did a moment ago." He used a soft voice, begging for her to understand reason.

"Peter I know that what I did wasn't right for you but you have to understand that it was something that would eventually come to the surface and I couldn´t keep living with the uncertainty of when or how." She was exasperated, raising her voice with each word. She just wanted to find some normalcy from the chaos that was her life. "But _he_ can kill everyone here with a movement of his hand!" She felt the corners of her eyes start to prickle with tears. "I thought you already knew that," She brokenly whispered; he had murdered her father, Peter's brother.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Claire; not you or anyone else here." All eyes were shifted to the man as he spoke. "I'm a changed man," he added in a gentle voice. His eyes were fixed upon her, so intense and full of remorse. She almost longed for the black pools of murder in his eyes that she was accustomed to so she could feel that something was familiar in the middle of this weird situation. She forced herself not to look away. "Yeah sure, and how long until you decide it's boring and start throwing parts of bodies everywhere?"

Ando shuddered at the mental image.

"Claire, I promise you I will not let that happen." Peter intervened. "I will explain all in due time but right now we need to focus on other things," he uttered. Claire looked at him for a moment and then sighed, defeated.

"Whatever." Clearly annoyed she turned and started to walk toward a small clearing. She was not looking forward to the things Peter had to say about Sylar, mostly because she was afraid of the repercussions of it. _Will I be forced to work alongside him now?_ She shuddered. Tired out of her bones, the day was starting to affect her more than it should. Hiro made to follow but Peter stopped him.

"Just… let her go; she needs time to think about everything and I need you to do me a favor."

Hiro nodded. "Okay, what do you need me to do?"

"Could you go back to the carnival and bring Emma? We left her in one of the tents and she is probably freaking out." Utterly embarrassed, Peter felt terrible for leaving her alone.

"Oh, Emma! I didn't know she was there too! Coming right away!"

Hiro blinked from sight. Peter then looked at Ando. The Oriental pointed behind him.

"I'm going to check on the carnies," he said and disappeared behind some trees behind them. It was then that Peter realized there were the former followers of Samuel around them. _Hiro must have transported all of us to the same place_, he thought. He breathed a sigh of relief; that certainly took one problem away. Turning, he lay eyes on Sylar. Lost in thought, the ex-serial killer was staring in the direction where Claire had gone.

"You know, nobody said it would be easy with everyone." Peter said, trying to lighten the mood. The reformed serial killer looked at him, a tiny smile forming on his lips.

"Well, you know me; I've always loved challenges."

And it was true, Peter had never met anyone more determined in his life; but for all the determination of his friend, Claire had equal amounts of stubbornness. Peter shuddered, thinking about the days to come. _This is not going to be pretty_, he thought.

* * *

><p>His left hand was numb.<p>

The handcuffs were cutting off circulation at the wrist level, preventing the proper passage of the precious vital fluid and certainly the position in which he was sitting - arms forcibly tied behind his back - did nothing to relieve the pressure.

The bench was cold and hard. A wet spot on the ceiling dripped to the floor relentlessness. He was getting impatient.

Samuel was playing with the tips of the crown that made his ring; it had always been his favorite.

They had ruined his plan, took his family away, and left him powerless. The family that had cost him so much work to create, to nurture and grow. The powers that had made him unique among the unique. He had fallen under the weight of his own downfall and had been thrown unceremoniously into one of the police cars; left there to wait for punishment, accidentally leaving him to witness a major turning point in history.

Good fortune had smiled on him again. Oh yes, Samuel was laughing at the irony of the entire situation. Claire, the nosy immortal who had ruined his plans, had jumped from the Ferris wheel, effectively making specials a known case. It was all he'd wanted to do too. He had laughed hysterically the entire road trip to his awaiting cell.

By the time he had stopped, they left him in this hole; he expected no less from Noah Bennet's friends. A filthy cell in a place that had known better times with a single guard; a guard who was now snoring away without restrictions from across the room. _It really seems that luck is on my side_, he thought with a smile full of wickedness.

"Hey you! What, a man doesn´t even deserve a glass of water?" He shouted to the guard, causing him to roll from his seat and fall crumpled to the floor.

"Where… what?" came his confused reply.

"A glass of water," Samuel replied, doing his best personification of a pitiful guy.

Luke, the guard, had been warned beforehand of the dangerous man. But just as he was, handcuffed and looking totally miserable, he couldn't deny the man some water. He was only human after all. So he got up and went to fetch a glass, coming back to the cell a minute later and carrying a glass full of water.

"Thanks, you're a good man," Samuel smiled warmly. "It's a shame you had to end this way."

Wide-eyed, Luke didn´t even had the time to process the words when the showman rose and put his hands around his neck, effectively knocking him to the ground. Luke tried to kick him, to get rid of him but the carny was strong and was collapsing his airway. He couldn't pull in enough oxygen to feed his muscles, not enough to stop him. Luke finally stopped struggling, his eyes losing its living glow.

The water spilled from the sideways and cracked glass and was now joining the small pool that had been created by the leaky roof. Samuel got up and shook his garments.

"You shouldn't have been so trustworthy," he said to Luke's now lifeless body on the floor. "After all I am a carny; we're always full of tricks."

With that said he went to the bench where he had been sitting and picked up his ring. It wasn't his favorite for no reason. He caressed the tips, which had helped him to open the handcuffs and put it back on.

"The show must go on," he said to no one in particular and resumed his escape.

**TO BE CONTINUED…**

* * *

><p><strong>AN 2: comments good or bad are welcome :)**


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER 2: DREAMS**

_Sweet dreams are made of these_

_Who am I to disagree?..._

… _Some of them want to use you_

_Some of them want to get used by you_

_Some of them want to abuse you_

_Some of them want to be abused_

_Sweet Dreams_, by _Marilyn Manson _

Noah massaged his temple with ample movements of his hand.

His infamous glasses were lying over the coffee table in front of him; the sofa was comfy and warm from the extended time he had been sitting there. The lights of his modest apartment were out in hopes to minimize the approaching headache. It was too late; his cranium was already pulsating loudly.

Lauren had left just minutes ago to check on Samuel, the charismatic former leader of the carnival, and while he was Noah's responsibility now, the company man could not help but feel thankful for the small moment of privacy that his partner had voluntary provided.

Although, maybe today wasn't the _best_ moment to be alone with his thoughts. He just couldn't stop thinking.

Claire had let him down.

He let out a frustrated sigh. Noah had witnessed the foolish mistake of his daughter, the gasps of surprise that followed, and the flashing lights of cameras. He didn´t want to know the rest, so he had left. No need to see more when he knew what would follow. It was extremely naive to think that the world would forever see with wonder and approval the miracle that was his daughter. He knew it well, the years he had spent inside the company had taught him well - years of working closely with the worst of humanity and witnessing the most heinous acts; many of which had been executed by his own hands.

It all had left him with a bitter realization.

The world was corrupted; _all of it_. Even his precious Claire. However good her intentions may have been, in the core of it, she had just been selfish; driven by her own desire to be accepted and belong, not putting into account the repercussions it would bring to others and to herself in a future not so far away.

She was selfish, reckless and corruptible; just like everyone else. His _Claire-bear._

Sure in the beginning many would look with wonder, admiration perhaps, but given time, people would start to frown and stare, envious and poisonous eyes trained on his daughter. His small girl - _no, I can't call her that anymore_, he inwardly corrected himself - would be the target of all the hatred.

Claire had started a revolution – whether it was now or a few years down-line - and he wasn't sure if she was aware of it or if he could forgive her for throwing herself head first without thinking about it. Disappointment was rooted deep in his chest.

He groaned; there would sure be time to think about the future. For now he had to keep going, making sure that everything fell into place like he had always done, even when he was dead tired.

His cell phone rang. He picked it up; the caller ID informing him it was Lauren.

"Hello?"

"Noah, oh thank God you answered! I have bad news; Samuel is gone."

He rubbed his eyes in anger. _"_Of course he is… I'll be there in 10 minutes." Noah hung up and pocketed his cell phone. Stretching out his hand, he took his glasses from the table. "No rest for the company man," he muttered in the darkness of his apartment, wearing his horn rimmed glasses again.

* * *

><p>Sylar left the dream's world at the sound of voices nearby.<p>

He lazily opened his eyes, the morning rays piercing through the window of his trailer to paint lights and shadows on every surface. He stretched out his clamped muscles. _It is strange to dream again_, he mused. In the nightmare-world that Matt had created, sleep was something unattainable; non-existent.

Dreams are, to a certain extent, a way for the brain to assimilate events, deal with the stimuli gathered during waking hours; in other words, a way to process data. But when you relive the same day over and over without any change, dreams become vestigial, useless, worthless. That's why he supposed he stopped doing it and as the years passed by, he stopped caring too. Now back in the real world, dreams along with other sensory sensations were a novelty; and sometimes a thing worth being remembered the next morning.

The redeemed murderer buttoned his shirt. Last night, after the return of Hiro with a smiling Emma in tow, the carnival magically came back with life, startling him. Of course he knew better than to think about magic. Apparently one of the carnies had the ability to link the components of the carnival-games, trailers, stands – and with the people who inhabited them, creating a connection of sorts between them.

Thus, when the last of the specials were relocated, it all simply returned to its usual joyful tune of activity. Sylar had been mesmerized by the demonstration of power, beginning to wonder which of the carnies held such intriguing gifts, when he decided it was time to stop before his thoughts could take a darker path._ I'm no longer that man_, he reminded himself. There were people counting on it, too; counting on _him_.

He smiled at the realization. There are people on his side now. Or to put it correctly, he was on the side of these people. Sure, he would be watched at first, but who could blame them? Sylar would have done the same if he would have been in a similar situation; hell, he probably wouldn't have trusted them at all. But they do and it was more than what he had been granted in life -_ a second chance_ - and he had no intentions of letting it go to waste.

During his treacherous existence, he had sought acceptance with the wrong people; first from his ill-infantile mother by trying to be the "Special boy" that she wanted so badly, then with the beautiful-but-lacking-in-boundaries Elle, who only saw him as a partner in crime, and then to Angela, who had seen him as a weapon to mold at her liking. Every one of those times ended with blood and a broken heart. All these people had played with his vulnerability, his need to be important in the eyes of others, using him in their ulterior motives.

He had been deliberately manipulated.

The pain he felt at the aftermath was the same he tried to inflict on others, on innocent people. The same innocent people who are now sharing the same roof, so to speak. A wave of guilt rolled in his chest, one that seemed to have lately taken permanent residence there. Sylar grasped the edge of his temporal bead, ebbing the foul sensation away.

Angry murmurs reached his ears and he stiffened. He couldn´t help himself as he got up and went for the window to inspect; after all, the need to know was intrinsically encoded in his DNA. He squinted his eyes. From this angle, he couldn't see much but one of the voices was unmistakable. Her screams would echo inside him forever.

_Claire Bennet._

She was fervently talking with a man, whose back was towards him, his broad shoulders stiff with tension. The reformed murderer changed his position at the window, trying to get a better look of the whole exchange and… there it was. Ironically, the other person had been in his head too - o_r was that the other way around?_ - although for entirely different reasons.

The police officer, Matt Parkman.

"Claire-Look I know you were tired of living in the shadows but now you have put all of us in danger!"

_Yeah, definitely irritable, oversized Parkman_, Sylar thought, amused.

"As if I could be the one to put all of you in danger! Me! It was only _me_ who jumped!"

_Oh, the cheerleader is fuming; better cover your eyes Matty, _he shuddered, remembering how bad it had hurt when she stuck that freaking pencil in his eye. Although, if he recalled the memory correctly, it had totally worth it considering where he was right now.

"Yes, but they will soon start to dig and it will led them to us! I´m a cop, Claire, I know what I mean."

_And not a very good one_, Sylar thought, remembering his misadventures with the mind reader.

"Okay, you _might_ be right, but that doesn't mean they will start hunting us."

"Claire, have you lost your mind?" He was yelling now as he forcibly took hold of her shoulder. "Perhaps you forgot what happened? The plane, Building 26, Danko! Remember?" He was shaking angrily with every word.

Something stirred in his heart. _Okay, time out._ Sylar stepped out of his hiding place. Claire was the first one to see him as Matt had his back to him. She froze in place; his dark eyes were full of mischief.

"Parkman," It was intended as a warning but came out more like a growl. Matt turned, releasing his hold on the girl.

"Great, it's you again!"

"It´s good to know that you are glad to see me too, but I´d would appreciate if you stop yelling in Claire's face. I bet she's not as used to your bad breath as I am."

Matt turned red with anger while Claire stared, open-mouthed. She couldn't believe it. Peter had spoken to her about the 'nightmare' they had shared together - five years locked in the psychopath's mind, every day hammering at a wall that held freedom behind it. He told her about how in those years, they became reluctant friends. It was like the closet all over again for Claire. The Sylar who wasn´t exactly the Sylar she had known. She refused to believe it; she told herself not to believe. But now seeing Sylar-the-poking-brains-monster defending her against the well-intentioned police officer was mind blowing.

_Where the hell am I? Bizarro world?_ She thought.

She must have spoken aloud because Matt heard her and looked at her. "Claire I'm sorry," he said softly. "I didn´t mean to scare you. It's just… we are all under great pressure and I just got carried away," he stammered, "but you need to understand that we truly are in great danger."

"Not necessarily," Sylar calmly said, forcing them to acknowledge him again.

"What do you mean?" Matt warily asked.

"Well, Building 26 was an institution that operated in secret, hidden from the innocent citizens."

Claire realized then that Sylar had been hearing their previous conversation. _Probably waiting for the right moment to make a dramatic entrance. Bastard_. The idea that it was all a calculated move from him made her hate him more.

"What are you exactly trying to say?" Matt asked annoyed. Unfinished sentences and cryptic messages were not his style; he always went to the point. But like it was prone to be whenever Sylar was involved, everything was complicated.

"The public opinion," Claire prompted, going back to the subject at hand.

"Exactly," Sylar answered, giving her his full attention. He smirked. Claire always seemed to be thinking in the same way that he thought. Souls cut from the same knife indeed.

"The only difference is that now there is no secret, thanks to Claire, everyone knows of our existence, giving us the opportunity to defend our case in the public eye."

"And how do you know if they're not, I don't know, going to turn against us?" Matt asked suspiciously.

"Well, to be honest, I don´t know."

"Great." The mind reader rolled his eyes. Claire stared at Sylar closely. _Where is he going with this?_

"But we _do_ have an _advantage_ in our favor. All they saw was a woman who jumped into the void and miraculously healed her wounds. Claire's power is purely defensive; there is nothing that screams danger in her, no offense," he leered at her.

_And yet I'm probably the only one who came close to killing you twice,_ she thought, amused, but didn't voice her thoughts.

"So what you are saying is that we show to the public only the less dangerous parts of our abilities?" Matt asked.

"That, and for Claire to become the official spokesperson for people with abilities."

"What?"

The two of them spat in unison; Sylar merely signed. Did he always have to explain everything for them? "It's the most logical thing to do. People have seen her power is harmless and let's admit it, she has some appeal for the cameras," he carefully monitored his voice as if explaining something to a couple of five-year-old's.

Claire dropped her gaze in revulsion. She didn´t want for the murderer to find her attractive in any way; besides, he had seen and heard how she had babbled when the questions started to come after her jump. She wasn´t cut out for that kind of job.

Sylar perceived Claire's uneasiness right away. "But if you feel that you can't do it, that's fine, we can always look out for someone with more experience in dealing with people…" He let play an innocent smile over his unshaven face.

Claire took the hint. "No, I got everyone in this mess and now it's my responsibility," she stubbornly said, green eyes shining with intensity. Her doubts were thrown back to the bottom of her mind now. _God forgive us if he wants to shape shift into me so he could deal with people himself_. She shuddered.

_That's my cheerleader, always willing to antagonize me_, Sylar thought as his eyes locked onto her eternal youthful face. He knew that if he used the right words, Claire would accept. She always wanted to prove herself around him.

"Okay, so if we do this then we need to plan it out beforehand. Where is Peter? He called me here but I haven't seen him since I came."

The two immortals seemed to break out of their reveries at the sound of Matt's voice. Claire blinked several times and looked away.

"I don't know, Parkman; I just woke up." Sylar suddenly stated, annoyed at the presence of the other man.

"He went to see Angela, said he needed to talk to her." Claire answered, massaging her brow.

"Well, then what we do?"

"Now we wait," Sylar replied with false joy.

"I´m going to see Emma," Claire murmured and left.

Matt nodded his head and went to Sylar's trailer.

_Probably looking for something to eat,_ Sylar thought with a smirk. He didn't move from his spot, bathing himself in the early morning rays of sunshine and watching Claire get away; getting away from him, just like she had done the previous night. One little girl approached the blonde, tugging at her sleeve and surprising her with a hug. Claire stiffened but smiled nonetheless as she recognized the little girl, maybe from an old trip to the carnival. Claire's smile could only be described with one word: _beautiful._

He had never seen her like that, so honestly and openly giving away what little she could offer; probably because she had never smiled like that in his presence. _Perhaps in one of Nathan's memories,_ he mused. The recollections of the late politician mixed with his own of Claire covered in blood were enough for him to drop his eyes.

For some reason, Claire's forgiveness held a significant importance to him. Maybe it was due to the fact that Claire had been the most affected by his crimes or perhaps it was because, like him, she was going to live forever and it would be inconvenient to watch his back that long of a time, expecting violence at any corner. Or maybe it was all that and more. He didn't know for sure, his feelings and memories were in a gutter, mixed and blurred together. What he did know is that if one day she could forgive him, a grand part of the guilt would vanish. The only problem was, she was Claire.

The most stubborn person _in the world._

He sighed. It wasn't going to be easy. He would have to do something: concede, call a truce, give in a little and start doing some nice things. Hiro _had_ warned him; the hero path was not an easy one.

Inside of the trailer, he heard the noise of a falling pan.

_'Shit, Parkman stop stealing my food_,' he thought, annoyed, and sure that the cop inside had heard him.

* * *

><p>Angela ran a hand through her disheveled hair. The soft fabric of her robe was enveloping her as she looked over the balcony of her room. The morning air was cold and she secured her robe more closely.<p>

The courtyard of the Petrelli's mansion was one of the most admired in all New York. Thick grass - exclusively brought in from Brazil - contrasted harmoniously with the marble statues that decorated the edges of the paved road leading to the font; the focal center of the landscape. Around it, roses perched proudly, making the scenery grow in its extravagance and pomposity. Roses had always been her weakness.

She let out a weary sigh. After seeing Claire little televised stunt, her night had mutated from calm to being a living hell. Nightmares plagued her subconscious; nightmares with blood, tears and cries, mixed with flashes of holdings hands, blinding lights and falling walls, all enveloped in a glowering orange light. Her dreams were never clear enough, always open to interpretation. But these were especially confusing, being convoluted in every scene. Even so, Angela had been able to discern three particular events that seemed to repeat itself on a constant pattern. _Destiny is a rabid beast_, she mused. The Petrelli matriarch was scared and not for the first time she cursed herself; she cursed her ability. A war was on the horizon.

"Nice view you have from here."

She turned around as a male figure materialized in front of her eyes. "Claude," she murmured with controlled calm, her face as hard as one of the statues she had been admiring before.

"I see you have not changed anything. Even in hard times you still seem to be made of iron, don't you?" Claude was in full mockery mood, it seemed.

"And I see you still enjoy entering people's houses without permission."

He shrugged one shoulder and placed his hands in the pockets of his large - albeit scruffy-looking - coat.

"Well, I figured I wouldn't need permission to visit the house of an old friend."

Angela remained silent for a moment. "What do you want, Claude?" She finally asked, cutting to the point. She was tired, dead tired, and it was starting to show in her face. But she knew that Claude wouldn't leave his hiding place unless under absolutely necessary circumstances. The man changed his stance a little and stared curiously at the woman before him. Angela was letting her emotions slip away from her mask.

"I want to know what lies ahead."

Angela hesitated for a moment; she was conflicted about what she had to do; it was a turning point, but only the first of many more to come. "We will need your help, Claude." She chose her words carefully."You always knew this day would come."

A shiver ran down through Claude at these words. It was something he had dreaded, he had feared, to hear when he decided to come here.

A knock at the door interrupted them; Peter's voice rang though it.

"Mom, can I talk with you a sec?"

Angela looked at Claude and he instantly vanished from sight at the silent request. "Of course," she said calmly.

Peter opened the door and approached his mother. "Morning. I hope that I didn't wake you." He noticed that his mother was still in a bathrobe, and felt a little guilty. He coyly smiled.

The corners of Angela's mouth upturned for the first time that day. "No, you didn´t, but I'm guessing you must already know that I didn't have the best of nights." She hugged her son in a warm embrace and caressed her stubble face for a second. Choosing to gaze out the windows and down to her gardens instead of stare at her son, she turned away.

"So I guess you already know what happened and your bad night of sleep is because of that?

Angela just nodded.

"And I assume your bad mood is because the dreams were not very nice?" Peter hesitantly voiced his thought out loud.

She turned around, staring straight at Peter's eyes, reaching for his hand gently.

"There's a war on the horizon, Peter; all of us must be strong to face whatever comes." Her tone a dark contrast compared with her maternal gesture.

Despite the sour words of his mother, Peter stared ahead. He refused to accept whatever was coming with open arms. He had always been an optimist of heart and even if his mother's words held great power behind it, he knew he wouldn't be here if he had listened to her every time. "The future is not written in stone."

Angela's heart broke a little, hearing those words again but from Peter's lips this time. "You know that my dreams are never wrong; believe me when I say that a war is inevitable. The only thing we can change is our odds at winning it. That's why you must prepare yourself and the others for what it is to come." She gave him a squeeze.

Losing his patient, Peter dropped her hands from his. "There's always something we can do!" He interjected, pacing down the length of the room. "This is not inevitable; I refuse to believe it, We have very powerful people on our side: Hiro, the carnival's people, _shit_! Even Sylar said he would help!"

"And that's a good thing, Peter. We can't afford to walk different paths now; we need to stick together." Angela's face softened.

"I'm going to show you that it can be changed!" Peter angrily spat and left the room.

Angela stared brokenly at the place her son had previously vacated.

"I've done all sorts of things in my life, Claude," she spoke out loud, knowing she still have another person close with her. "And I have always done them without looking back, because in the end they were the right things to do." Her voice broke a little. "But the most difficult of these things was always letting go of my child." Claude materialized again and Angela gazed at him. "I hope you understand that."

Claude scowled. "I spent the last seventeen years hiding him from people like you; why do you think that should change now?"

"It's not the woman of the company who is _ordering_ for you to do it, it is the mother in me that is _asking_ you." She let out a long sigh, despair written all over her features. "They can't do it alone and you know it," she tried to reason again.

Claude's stare was locked on Angela tired face. The woman seemed to have instantly aged years in the span of seconds. He glanced in the direction Peter had gone. "I will go talk to him."

Angela let out a sigh of relief. "Michael is a good boy; he's going to help save the world."

Claude laughed humorlessly and left the room with a final bow.

**TO BE CONTINUED…**

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Claude was one of my favourite characters in season 1.  
><strong>

**Comments are welcome!  
><strong>


	3. Dreams

**CHAPTER 3: SOMEWHERE A CLOCK IS TICKING**

_Wage your war, wage your war_

_(I could do most anything to you)_

_Another soldier says he's not afraid to die_

_(I could do most anything to you)_

_I am scared, I'm so scared_

_In slow motion the blast is beautiful_

_(I could do most anything to you)_

_Doors slam shut, doors slam shut_

_(I could do most anything to you)_

_A clock is ticking but it's hidden far away_

_(I could do most anything to you)_

_Safe and sound, safe and sound_

"_Somewhere a Clock is Ticking",_ by Snow Patrol

There was a stinging sensation, one that could not be avoided. Emma was thinking, contemplating the wounds on her hands, seeing the ragged flesh with clinical eyes, eyes that only a doctor possessed. They weren't deep cuts, but that didn't mean they weren't painful.

Emma closed her eyes. Fleeting images passed through her head as she recalled the night before.

She could have killed that guy with a careless movement of her wounded hands; Doyle certainly did deserve it after roughly manipulated her with such finesse. Emma shuddered. She didn't want to think about her power like some sort of deadly weapon. However, it was clear that she had not known much of her gift before yesterday. Samuel himself had explained to her the siren´s call, a facet of her synesthesia that lay underneath, waiting to be explored, waiting to be exploited by him. He took advantage of her naivety. Had it not been for Gabriel and Peter, who knows the tragedy that could have happened.

_Peter_. Emma smiled inwardly. The man who had spent years locked in a mental prison with his worst enemy to try and convince that enemy to save her, to save them all. What would have been of her if they had not met? She probably would still be archiving files at the hospital, disconnected from the world; she certainly wouldn't have come this far. Emma absentmindedly ran a hand through her bandages and looked down; yet another reminder of Peter's loving and caring touch. It had been a small but nonetheless enormous act of comfort for her in a place so full of uncertainly.

Emma hadn't witnessed the girl, Claire, jump off the carnival's Ferris wheel but she had felt this feeling at the time, like there was something she was missing. Imagine her surprise when she found herself alone in a place that had witnessed so much pain. Fortunately, Hiro appeared and took her somewhere else. It was then that Peter and Gabriel dropped the bomb.

They were exposed.

For a person like her, one that had discovered her power only just recently, perhaps the weight of the news didn't have the same effect than on other people. But Emma wasn't stupid and if there was something she had plenty of, was intuition.

She didn´t need hearing to know that the consequences wouldn't be so good. She had seen the faces of the people around her, concerned and scared; they were the faces of people who had been haunted in the past. Her guessing had been accurate as Peter confided his own troubles with exposure while he tended to her wounds last night. She reacted like the rest; she worried. But Peter had tried his best to reassured her by saying it didn't have to be that way now. Emma had shyly nodded although deep down she knew that for all the heroism that was in Peter, he was also not exactly sure of what to do; powers or not, he was still just a man.

A slender hand landed on her shoulder.

"Emma right?" There was a blonde woman with light green eyes staring at her. "I'm Peter's niece, Claire. I think you saw me yesterday but we were not introduced." She smiled nervously. Emma recalled her to mind. Yes, she had seen the girl grumpily storming to a trailer; it was also the same girl who had revealed Specials to the world. But it wasn't Emma's place to bring that one up.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Claire," Emma smiled kindly.

"Peter told me that I could find you here and me being me, I couldn't resist meeting you; he has told me great things about you." Claire spoke deliberately, carefully; apparently Peter had told her of her deafness too.

"He didn't say anything bad?" Emma was half-teasing, half-speaking seriously.

"No! No, he just told me wonders about you." Claire laughed.

"He did?" She blushed. A sinking sensation in her chest blossomed and Emma felt like giggling. She sobered up quickly, opting to remain more serious. "Do you know, by any chance, where he is?"

"He went to talk to Angela, his mother." Claire offered giving her a half smile. "It seems that Peter is the most wanted man today; you´re not the only one who has been asking for him" Claire thought out loud.

"Well he seems to be some kind of leader around here so..." She absentmindedly was playing with her bandages again.

Claire noticed the movement and mistook it for pain. "Are you hurt?" The young blonde gently took Emma's hand and began to inspect it.

"Not much, there are little cuts from when Doyle was-"

"Doyle attacked you? The bastard! What did he do this time?" She rushed to ask, the words leaving her mouth and making furious color waves around her.

"Well Samuel wanted to use me to attract as many people to the carnival as possible. I didn't want to so he brought Doyle to use that creepy puppet master thing with me," Emma said, amused. She looked away. She was trying to shy away her worries by smiling and joking. "The thing is that he kept me playing that cello for hours."

"Believe me; I know a thing or two about these games Doyle likes to play." Claire rolled her eyes and leaned over. "But what happened, how did you get out of his clutches?" She playfully smiled. "Was it Peter?"

"No, Peter came after; it was Gabriel." There was a puzzled look on Claire's face. "You know, the man who came with Peter."

Suddenly all playfulness vanished from Claire's face and it shifted into a more somber expression. "Oh… his friend, how I could forget him?"

While Claire's words had been bright, sunny colors a few moments ago, now they changed to deeper, more intense shades. She frowned a little but Claire was too immersed in her own emotions to notice, focused on the hem of her camisole.

"Yeah… well he managed to stop Doyle. He is a really great guy," she added as an afterthought. Gabriel had been very kind to Emma during and after the whole incident.

"You have no idea how great he is." There was an obvious display of disgust in Claire face. Emma nodded and retained herself from questioning the other woman about it further.

The two felt silent. Each seemed deeply immersed in her own thoughts. After a long minute, Emma gathered her confidence and asked what had been dancing in her head all morning. "Things are going to get ugly, aren't they?"

Claire left her trance-like-state and pursed her lips, looking conflicted. "I think it's entirely on us and in what we decide to do now. I won't lie to you, there might be people who would want to chase us, but there are people who are going to accepts us too. I think that possibility is enough for us to at least try," she frankly said.

A still second tickled by as Emma let Claire's words sink. She put one of her bandaged hands on the blonde's. "Well, if all else fails and the worst does happen, at least we have each other here." She smiled reassuringly. Emma may not know much about violent acts or government hunts, like many seemed to know here, but she did know of confinement, of loneness and isolation; she had confined herself from society because of her deafness, casted away by her own hand. It was a nice feeling to finally be with people, with people like her; to belong.

"I think you're right," Claire smiled. She was beginning to understand why Peter was so fond of this woman.

* * *

><p>Lauren stared again to her traveling companion. Noah was going to fall over the wheel at any second.<p>

"Are you sure that you don't want me to drive? I wouldn't like to get thrown into one of these trees, you know," she said jokingly but the look in her eyes said otherwise; it was an actual possibility.

"Very funny but I told you, I´m fine; and we both know you drive like an old woman."

Lauren frowned. She didn't drive like an old woman, she just wasn't as reckless as him. Well, at least she got a reaction from the man, if only for a short minute. "You should tell her." She said it subtlety while turning to stare out at the window. _How much farther until we get to the city?_ Lauren wondered.

"Lauren, we already discussed this." Noah clenched his jaw. "I'm not going to say anything to Claire unless we have something more palpable. There's no need to worry her."

The blond agent turned. "But you do know that Samuel is after the carnival; they should know," she argued back.

"Samuel doesn´t have a compass; he doesn't have a way to get there." He rubbed one of his eyes.

Lauren deflated some. "Still, I don't like this." She sighed. They were standing on thin ice and she was afraid it would break.

"Me either, but if our informant is right, then Samuel is in Charlotte, north Carolina; which means we can catch him there, without any more causalities."

Lauren bit her lip as she watched the tress pass by. "Sometimes I wish I had followed my mother's advice and become a lawyer," she whispered.

Noah's eyes let the road to stare at her. "Yes, but that way, we would never had known each other."

Lauren smiled. "I don't know, eventually you would need a lawyer." She joked and Noah scowled. "But yes, you are possibly right," she offered to concede.

"Possibly? I'm always right."

"Okay, now you're being a jerk," Lauren scolded halfheartedly.

"Then I'll shut up."

Lauren resumed staring at the scenery passing by. _Let's hope he is right on this too,_ she thought.

* * *

><p>Peter stumbled forward and caught himself before landing face first against the harsh gravel. Yeah, he knew flying at high speeds without care for the solid dirt below tends to leave bruises, but right now, he couldn't give a damn; he was a mess of nerves.<p>

He was angry; scratch that, he was furious.

Furious at the apathy of his mother, angry at himself because he didn't know what he could do with only one ability at a time.

But fuck it if he wouldn't do anything to stop the war from happening. He wouldn't just stand by like an idiot.

Walking with determination, he approached the carnival´s grounds and immediately spotted Sylar sitting near a tent. The former murderer smiled upon seeing his only friend.

"Hey, I've been waiting for you. Matt is here and he isn't very happy-"

Peter grabbed Sylar forcibly by the arm, lifting him from the seat with one movement. "I need to talk to you in private," he whispered urgently. Sylar frowned, baffled by Peter's demeanor, but he nodded all the same.

"Okay." The door of the trailer behind him was open and Peter followed inside. Glancing around Sylar, making sure there wasn't anyone within earshot, he then shut the door behind them.

"Today I went to talk to my mother," Peter said, not wasting any time.

"Yeah, Claire told me. I assume by your state it wasn't a pleasant conversation?"

Peter ran a hand through his hair, frustration climbing to appear on his face. "No, it wasn't." He murmured while trying to collect his thoughts. "She dreamed of the future, said a war is coming."

Sylar froze. He knew of Angela's prophetic dreams; shit, in more than one occasion he had starred in those dreams, but he also knew there were ways to avoid its dreadful outcomes. They were nothing more than a glimpse of what could happen, a possibility upon countless others.

Peter felt the warm of a hand on his shoulder; a gesture that remind him of Nathan. "Don't worry Peter, we will figure something out." He offered reassuringly. "Remember Kirby plaza? The bomb was stopped then and you didn't even have the secret weapon."

Peter nodded and then frowned. "Secret weapon? What are you talking about?"

"Me, of course." Sylar patted Peter's shoulder, smirking away.

"You're an idiot." The empath pulled off Sylar's hand hastily, though his bad mood had significantly decreased from the short conversation. Sylar was an arrogant and playful creature but Peter had to give the man some credit, there was some truth in his words; he was the most powerful Special among them and - contrary to how the scene at Kirby plaza had played out - he was on their side now.

Sylar felt his friend relax a little and let the smugness fall from his face. "I think it would be best not to say anything to the others. There is no need to make them worry about things that have yet to happen." Sylar stopped himself. Since when did he become the one to worry about not causing massive hysteria among others? He used to enjoy that. He shook his head. "If it even does happen, anyway."

Peter nodded. Sylar was right. They didn't need to cause panic about something that could be prevented; cool heads was what they needed to have. "Did you say Matt is here? I called him earlier but I didn't think he would come so quickly."

The ex-serial killer nodded. "Apparently he was already on his way here when you called him or something."

"So what happened?" Peter prompted.

"Well there was a little discussion with Claire-" Seeing as Peter was going to interrupt him, he quickly added, "-but it didn't end badly; in the end, the three of us made some plans."

Peter arched an eyebrow. "Really?" _What kind of plan could possibly come from those three_? He didn't have any idea.

"Yeah, well, we decided that Claire will be our official spokesperson," Sylar announced dismissively.

"So… she accepted it?"

Sylar gave Peter a blank stare. "Peter I told you I'm the secret weapon and one of my many powers is to persuade the cheerleader to do things she otherwise wouldn't."

Peter decided to not question Sylar or his so-claimed power-of-persuasion for fear of knowing what he really meant and instead simply shook his head in amusement. "One of these days she is going to follow her threat to tear you down."

"Oh I'm counting on it, Pete." He smirked.

* * *

><p>"Can I do something for you, sir?" A methodic - and a little bit reluctant - voice sounded from the waitress; seated at her section was a strange man with a black hood on. She was utterly bored and used to dealing with all kinds of weird in this place; she didn't even give the customer a second look.<p>

"What's your problem, Nyria? You no longer recognize an old friend when you see it?"

She would recognize that voice everywhere. "Samuel."

"The one and the same." Black and dangerous eyes stared at her under the hood. He winked at her.

"What are you doing in here?" She annoyingly placed her notepad on the table as she looked the man dead in the eye.

The pleasurable expression on Samuel's face changed abruptly. "I need a favor."

Nyria clicked her tongue; of course he would need one. "Sorry, but not interested." The waitress turned to leave.

"This is how you thank me for saving your life? Remember well, Nyria. It was me who rescued you from those agents and spoke to Joseph; you wouldn't have found solace in our family otherwise because we both know you didn't deserve it."

She stopped in her tracks, frozen in place. Nyria did remember well. It had been fun playing with those men for a while, but then the situation escalated and more men with tasers came along, hunting her with more and more ease. She had been trapped. If Samuel had not conveniently shown up, she wouldn't be here.

The life she had had on the carnival had been a nice touch to her otherwise lonely life but Nyria was a loner - she grow up mostly alone and she would die alone, too - so it didn't work out for long. When she was young she had always looked for exciting things. She painfully clenched her hands at her sides. Now, she only wanted to survive. "I don´t need blood on my hands right now, Samuel," she said to him but the words were meant to be a reminder for her. She didn't need it, did she?

"You know that isn't true. Besides, it wouldn't be exactly your hands." Nydia felt cold hands enclosing her own and she slowly look to the left; Samuel smiled mischievously at her. She froze, wide black eyes directed upon his somber ones. Something snapped inside her. It was the vagueness of his words that finally got through her. "I haven't had any fun in ages," she whispered, letting him know more than he should.

"You know me Nyr; providing fun is part of my job."

A smirk made its way across her face as she considered his implications. Nyria slid into the booth across from Samuel. Normal was overrated anyway.

* * *

><p>"She looked at me, I looked at her, but I didn't say a word," confessed the large woman to the smaller one as she threw looks from side to side. No one was around to listen. <em>Good<em>, she thought and continued throwing popcorn into the machine. The other woman nodded enthusiastically.

"I didn't say hello either. I mean, what did she expect? That we would receive her with open arms? I liked my anonymity, it's one of the reasons I joined the carnival, but now-"

Edgar arrived without warning, scaring the hell out of the two women and effectively causing the popcorn to fly everywhere.

"Edgar, stop doing that! You almost killed me!" The older woman shouted, enraged way beyond her limits. She rested a hand on her chest, willing her palpitating heart to stop racing.

"There is going to be a meeting in the clearing near the willow; be there now," Edgar grudgingly said. Not giving any more information, he left, leaving a swirl of wasted popcorn along the way.

"Always so lovely, Edgar," yelled the youngest one. She brushed her tousled hair out of her face.

"What do you think is this?" Staring where the speedster raced off to, the larger woman willed her soul to return to her body. For a moment, she had thought it could be one of the others more dangerous Specials. _Sylar_, she recalled, and shuddered all over.

Glowing in indignation, the girl started to clean up the mess. "I have no idea."

* * *

><p>All of the carnies had been summoned to the clearing and were now milling about, waiting. The sun was setting, the shadows of the trees creating eerie shapes on the troubled faces of the silent crowd. Ando shuddered at the sight; it seemed to be taken out of a bad horror movie.<p>

He had spent almost all day inside a trailer; but it was not for fear of Sylar. _No, of course not_, he kept repeating to himself as a mantra. It was simply because he was tired and in that wing of the carnival he found silence and desertion. He was not going to worry his fiancée because she couldn´t talk to him about this. Well, maybe he was a little scared but the Kimiko part was also true; she had said, in her exact words, that at the slightest suspicion of something bad happening, she would travel to the States and bring him and Hiro home by their ears.

And if there is a person even more frightening than Sylar, well that person would have to be his bright, future wife when she was in really pissed off mood.

Hiro had been his company most of the day but the restless man couldn't be in one place for so long. So he went to, in his words, to explore the carnival and eat a caramel apple. That left Ando alone with his cell phone and an exasperated Kimiko on the other side. Hours later, when he finished dealing with his beautiful wife to be, he finally exited the trailer and came face to face to the strange pilgrimage of carnival people going only God knows where - or why, for that matter. Curious about the behavior, he decided to follow them and thus he had ended here, in the middle of the crowd, looking un-abashedly freaked out.

"Ando, I've been looking for you!" Hiro said out of nowhere.

The other oriental almost died of a heart attack from Hiro's sudden appearance but, used to his friend's antics, he just shook his head, annoyed. Hiro smiled innocently."What is going on here?" He inquired, trying to shed light onto the mystery.

"Peter wants to make an announcement," the Japanese man answered while raising his glasses to the bridge of his tiny nose out of habit.

"…And that is?" Ando prompted, eager to hear Hiro continue.

"Oh I don´t know, but we soon will find out." The Japanese man said dismissively, turning to stare ahead at what looked like an improvised stage. Peter, Claire, Sylar, Matt and Emma walked onto it.

Ando gaped incredulously at his best friend for a second. _How the hell he managed to get this far I will never know_, he thought. He was taken out of his internal mussing when Peter spoke from the makeshift stage.

"I know many of you are wondering why you were summoned to this place," Peter looked around, earning everyone attention. He continued."As all of you already know, our secret has been revealed-"

"Yes, because of what that stupid girl did!" One of the carnies shouted. Many more joined, yelling and expressing their discontent. Claire's gaze dropped to the ground. Regretful eyes didn't dare to look up at the many faces she had probably wronged.

Sylar recognized the bitter expression and felt a pang of something stir in his chest. "Enough!" He shouted over the crowd, each person instantly fell silent."Samuel was planning to do the same and you all agreed," he said through clenched teeth. "If it wasn't for Claire, everybody would be famous and very dead, so don´t be fucking hypocrites." He hissed and the carnies shuddered in fear.

"Sylar, I can handle this." Peter tried to appease Sylar, seeing fear in some faces. This wasn´t the way to go with all this. The watchmaker took a deep breath and regained some of his calm, letting Peter take the reigns again. "As my friend was trying to say, Samuel had already planned to expose us by killing hundreds of people. Now I'm not saying that what Claire did was okay, but all of you have to admit it was the best way to go about it."

A large woman spoke up. "I don't want my children to have to go through another situation like before; they have already lost their father, I'm all they have left." The little girl at her feet hugged her tightly. Yells of approval and eyes full of concern resurfaced on the fairground.

"It doesn't have to be that way! We will not allow something like that to happen," Peter answered back. "A few moments ago I spoke with one of the producers of an important show on television; they are willing to give us an interview, to present our case."

"But who? How? When?" Was all that could be heard among the people on the crowd.

"I will," Claire said. Her words were carried to doubtful ears and the carnies promptly stopped. "With my ability people would not see me as a threat. In any case, they would see me as another freak." She grimaced, changing tactics. "What I'm trying to say is that I will become your official spokesperson." Incredulous and stunned faces stared at the girl.

"But what is going to happen with the government?" Someone asked.

"They will not do anything to us if people start seeing us as harmless humans; just think about it. Wouldn't be nice to walk down the street without fear?" Peter was starting to see hope in some of the faces.

"But if people see us as terrorists instead?" Edgar asked suspiciously.

Peter and Sylar shared a sidelong glance, the words faltered.

"That's not going to happen; we will make sure of that," Matt intercepted quickly.

"What do you think?" Ando whispered to Hiro.

"Well, it is in us to keep the status quo again." He said, deadly serious.

"When is not?" Ando said in exasperation. Kimiko wasn't going to be happy about this.

* * *

><p>The young man tried to open the door of his apartment with his car's keys. Again.<p>

He cursed under his breath as he worked at it again, this time making sure to use the right key. The door creaked open. He swiftly entered, distractedly placing the copious amount of keys in a glass bowl over the table next to the door. The object fell to the ground with a crack.

"Fuck!" Bending down, he picked up the broken pieces of glass, careful not to hurt himself. He placed the remains over the table for later disposal. Turning around, he closed the door, making sure to put the lock on. Wearily, he let out a sigh; his day at the store had been terrible. Lots of lots of orders to complete, rude customers unsatisfied with his work; he hadn't even had time for a substantial lunch with all the rush. Aware of this now, his stomach growled in protest. Being a locksmith was horrible, but at least it helped to pay the bills.

"If I had known you were this hungry I would had brought something to eat with me," said a familiar voice.

He rolled his eyes. _Great just great_. "How many times do I have to tell you to knock before you come in, Claude?" The invisible man revealed himself. "It's rude."

Claude gave him a half-smile from his place on the couch."Old habits die hard, son; how have you been Michael?"

Michael slumped on the couch with a groan; the old couch offered very little relief to his sore muscles."To be honest, today was not exactly the best of days," he grumpily offered. "I don´t know, people seems to be in serious need of locks and keys." He removed his old glasses and started to clean them with the edge of his shirt. "Although, I'm sure you didn't come in here to talk about that, did you?" He raised his eyebrow for effect.

"No, I've come here for something else." Claude moved forward over the couch, resting his forearms over his knees.

Michael saw the guarded expression on the man he had come to known as a father and started to worry. "Is it the company? Do I have to move again?"

"No, it isn't the company," Claude promptly said. "The company shouldn't be one of your worries anymore." Claude laughed at this, an inner-joke the other man didn't understand; the company was mostly wiped out by now. "I assume you've seen the news; more specify the girl who jumped from the Ferris wheel?"

Michael relaxed some "That farce? I didn't pay it much attention but it is obviously a product of sensationalist media to get more public."

"It is not a farce, it is all real; as real as me and you," Claude cautiously said.

Michael frowned in confusion. "But I thought the company was the one to make sure that things like that never go public."

Claude labeled Michael with a poignant stare. "Mike, the company as you and me have known it to be is over and the only man that could had stopped it would never do it."

"How so?" Michael inquired curiously.

"Noah Bennet, currently the best and only man from the company, is also the father of the girl, Claire Bennet." The invisible man laughed bitterly.

Suddenly everything started to make sense for Michael. No doubt the paternal instinct was stronger than the mission. Michael briefly glanced at Claude, his protector, his mentor for so many years, his dad. Claude could relate to Noah Bennet; after all, he had done the same thing years before.

Nevertheless Claude still wasn't giving him a clear answer. "I don't get how this can involve either you or me." It wasn't tactless from his part to say it. For so long it had been him and Claude, a commune, the world's forgotten, staying under the radar and watching each other backs. Michael had not known a lot of specials during these years and those he had come across had not been very kind to him; that's why he ultimately didn't care for others._ It wasn't selfish_, he inwardly mused, _it was self preservation, always had been._

"The people who are with the girl are going to need your help."

Michael let out a laugh but it soon died in his throat upon finding the serious look over Claude's bearded face. "You are kidding, right?" Silence was his only answer. The younger man got up and started pacing. "You know I have no control of what I can do!" He grimly said.

"I know," Claude hissed. "You think I want to drag you into this madness!" Frowning, Michael stopped in his tracks. "Sadly, this is our best chance to win the war."

There was dread in Claude´s words and Michael felt his gut sinking as his body dropped boneless onto the couch. "War? What the hell are you talking about?"

"Your ability could be of great benefit if used correctly-"

"You know what happened last time! I could kill someone-"

"That was a mistake," Claude interrupted quickly. "There was a lot on your shoulders, you panicked, okay? It doesn't have to be like that again." Michael looked down. "Look, this girl, Claire, she cannot die so you could put into practice-"

"Are you saying I use the girl as a lab rat?" He incredulously asked. Claude should know better than to suggest something like that, considering their past. "I´m not perfect, I've done bad things but I can't use someone like that."

Claude stormed up from the couch. "There is no time to discuss morality terms right now!" He was shaking. "This is survival 101 and if we're not in the wining team then we're going to die like the rest!"

Michael froze and tried to control his temper. Claude was right, the bastard always was, otherwise he wouldn't even be breathing right now. If it really was a war in the future, they were the most vulnerable. They were isolated and without an offensive plan or a totally-controlled power, they were easy prey. Although he didn't want to admit it aloud, he was tired of this boring life, of this insignificant existence, hiding and living like a fugitive; perhaps it was the time to see what he had been losing.

"Okay I´ll do it." Though he was agreeing, Claude didn't say anything about using his power on anyone. _Small graces._

"Good. There is going to be an interview tomorrow morning and Claire will be the main start; you're going to go there."

Michael quirked an eyebrow. "Tomorrow?"

"Yes, you have a problem with that?"

Michael shook his head immediately. He thought he would have at least a couple of days. The young man rose from his seat on the couch. Claude approached and gave him an awkward half-hug. Michael was surprised; displays of affection from the invisible man were rare.

Claude let go of him quickly. "Just remember, son: whatever happens, I will be by your side."

Another thing that surprised Michael. He could count with the fingers of his hand the times Claude had called him son. He felt the need to say something. "Well what is family if not for that?" He swiftly said to ease the mind of the older man.

"Yeah, family," Claude whispered and looked aside.

**TO BE CONTINUED…**

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Ok the game is ready now starts the real action ;-)**


	4. REVELATIONS part 1

**CHAPTER 4: REVELATIONS PART 1**

_You know what to do, you know what I did.  
>Since you know everything just clue me in.<br>I am such a wreck, I am such a mess.  
>I know what I know, why don't you fill in the rest?<br>I will bring you down I will make it bad.  
>While you're feeling proud, why don't you help me?<br>Such a shame that I wouldn't know by now,  
>your revelations cut me in.<br>I don't want to live without your revelations.  
>Revelations<em>, by Audioslave.

"Samuel" Noah spat angrily. "This guy seems to be more elusive than a squirrel! Now he could be anywhere!" He was frantically pacing in the small hotel room he had chosen as his headquarters in Charlotte.

Lauren grimaced slightly from where she was sitting on the edge of the bed, trying to get rid of the uncomfortable shoes she wore. "Noah, calm down; at least we have a visual from the security video tape from the motel. Now we know that at least he was in the city." She tried to appease him.

Noah sat on the desk chair by the window, hastily pulling and removing his glasses. "Yes, but we still arrived too late," he complained. "Even driving all day, nonstop." He mumbled.

Lauren got up from her sitting place and put her hands on her hips. "Look, I know you're upset and stressed and frankly I am too, but now is not the time for this," she signaled at the wallowing mess around them. "We need to think straight." She paused a moment, deep in thought. "Why would Samuel come to a place like this?"

Noah expelled a breath, trying to control his fleeting mood. "You're right. He must have a contact in the city."

"Exactly."

"Call your informant; it's time for a little old-fashioned investigation."

Lauren eagerly took out her phone and started dialing numbers.

* * *

><p>Claire stood immobile. Behind her was a display of dresses laid out over the bed.<p>

Yep, this gipsy look is not exactly TV material, she thought. Frowning, she inspected herself in the mirror of her borrowed trailer more closely. The dress was cute but way too casual. Letting out a frustrating sigh, she sat on the bed again.

Most of her clothes had stayed at her room at the campus, but she didn't dare to go there. Gretchen had been very clear during their last phone conversation when she had told Claire with a not-so-friendly attitude that she was reckless and selfish for doing something like expose herself that way. Claire had tried to make the girl understand in her own way and, well, things had not gone pretty from there. Gretchen said she did not want to get herself mixed up this mess. Deep down, in between the sadness that Claire was feeling because her only friend was abandoning her too, she also understood that it was a thing meant to happen. It was a well known fact that every people who tried to get close to her always ended up hurt and she couldn't place Gretchen in a situation as dangerous and uncertain as now.

So Claire refused to go to campus, feeling that she couldn't face the other girl; at least not until Claire knew she wasn't there –which would be in a couple of weeks from now as the holidays were rapidly approaching - leaving the coast clear for her. Thinking of Gretchen reminded Claire of another important person who for the moment had also left her. Her dad. He had not called, not even once, and he was not returning her calls either, a gesture that spoke volumes of his displeasure towards her latest decision. She was on her own from now on and it was scaring her.

And that's why she was now sitting on a bed that wasn't her own in a carnival trailer, apparently rummaging through clothes that, by the way, did not fit her and weren't much of her style, either. But she couldn't voice her thoughts aloud with them; the carnies clearly hated her, if the meeting the day before held any indication. She was alone, wallowing, a great pressure constricting her rib cage and it was so stupid than instead she worried herself with thoughts about things like if she walked on a television studio dressed like this, would people think of her more of a phenomenon of what she already was? A succession of knockings pulled her out of her reverie.

Jumping off bed, she stared at the door. It was early for Peter to come and take her to the studio; she still had time until the interview. She rearranged her floral printed, baggy dress and went to answer the door. Maybe if it was Peter, they could talk. He could help her out with this.

Of all the people she might have expected, this was surely the last.

Sylar was standing on the other side, looking forlorn as he held something in his hands for her to see. _Is that a dress?_ She thought, puzzled.

"Sorry if I'm bothering you but I thought… you might need this…" he trailed off miserably, giving her the item.

Claire took it with stiff fingers, making sure to not touch him, and unfolded it, to inspect. It was a black dress with tiny straps, made of a light material that fell to her knees. The neck line was not a deep one as it opted for something more subtle instead. It was simple yet elegant. Perfect.

It was wrong.

Nothing that he could give her could be good; _ever_. "Where did you get this?" She asked, not bothering to mask her suspicion. For all she knew he could have killed someone for it. He looked down, connecting his dark eyes to her brighter ones. She looked at him incredulously; he almost seemed offended by her question.

"It was from a woman who lived here. She passed away recently and her daughter Amanda gave it to me; said it could serve you."

Amanda. She knew the girl and she knew her mother even more. "Lydia," she whispered, remembering the tattooed woman fondly. The same one who had died at the hands of Samuel, trying to protect her family even with her last breath. She didn't know why, maybe it was like some sort of mourning mechanism, but she felt the compulsion to know more of his link to the woman.

"Did you know her?" She asked, absentmindedly running her fingers through the fabric of the black dress. Maybe forming memories in her head could help her reconcile that she would use something that had belonged to the beauty. Deep inside, Claire felt guilty about the abrupt departure of the kind woman.

"A little," Sylar concealed. He faintly smiled with the memories. "She was very kind to me, helped me understand a few things."

A fleeting smile crossed Claire's mouth as she remembered the time when Lydia had shown her the deepest desire of her soul, 'the indestructible girl' inked on her back. Then she remembered Sylar saying he had gained a new ability, a tattoo of her face on his forearm, broken windows and a tiny closet back at her abandoned college. She tightened her grasp on the black dress as she came back from her unexpected trip down memory lane. "Is that all? Because I have to be ready in an hour."

"No, wait," he rushed to say. "I wanted to talk to you." He mumbled, "Please, Claire."

The please was what finally threw her out a loop. In her mind, Sylar and the word 'please' did not mix together. "What?" was all she could say at the moment.

"It would be just for a minute." Feeling her wariness, he added, "If it makes you felt better we can talk there," he pointed to a bench not far from where they stood, under an oak.

Claire thoughtfully considered the offer. From that point of view, they could watch all the property and in return they could be easily spotted by the carnies going and coming in the busy morning. It was a safe place; or, at least as safe as you could be in the company of a serial killer, alone. She sighed frustratingly. If she refused he would probably force her anyway. "Okay."

Sylar quickly made his way to the loner bench under the tree, waiting until she seated herself to allow himself to do the same. She rolled her eyes at his pathetic attempt of chivalry and readied herself from what he had to say. An uncomfortable silence descended on them. Claire started playing with the hem of her floral dress out of irritation until he finally spoke.

"I know you probably hate me-" For her, this was the understatement of the year. "-and I do understand, I really do, after all the things I've done, who wouldn't, right?" Claire blanched a little at the sound of his voice. If she knew anything about this man from past encounters it was that he seemed to love the sound of his voice. "-that's why I think we should try to fix things between us."

"What?" That last statement seemed to do the trick as her face paled and she directed her sole attention to him again.

"Given the current circumstances I think it would be better for everyone if we could just start over."

"Are you crazy?" She spat. "_You_ killed my parents; it was _you_! The same one who _tried_ to kill me and _did_ cut my head open!"

"Claire. Look, I know all that - believe me, my sins haunt me - but maybe it we started knowing each other and with time - look at Peter for example, he made an effort and he ended up forgiving me-"

"I'm not _Peter_!" She yelled out loud this time. "And I could never forgive you." Some of the carnies who had been passing by stopped in their tracks at the sound of Claire pitched and anguished voice.

Sylar felt like she had slapped him. "But I'm a changed man," he mumbled to himself, looking down.

Claire got up from the bench. "Then prove it! Because all I can see now is the man who tore my life apart." Silent tears of despair were rolling down her cheeks now and she turned away from him, intent on not giving him the pleasure of seeing her cry. She went to her trailer, hurrying her pace, dreading the feeling of telekinesis holding her down; but it never came. She closed the door behind her and slid down all the way to the floor. Claire's body shook with tremors; she cried. She cried for Gretchen, she cried for her dad, she cried for the hate of the carnies, and she cried even more because it was always Sylar that was the catalyst of her outbursts.

The watchmaker sat, speechless. He did not dare to look up, he did not dare to see Claire's parting figure, and he did not dare to do anything. He just stayed motionless under the oak, leaning sideways against the bench, breathing evenly until one of the carnies cautiously approached him.

He looked at the man dead in the eye; his jaw clenched so tight it hurt. The carnie stepped away fearfully. Sylar slowly stood up and, with a final glare at the onlookers who had gathered there, he flew off, leaving a tray in the otherwise clear sky and a frightened crowd at his feet.

* * *

><p>"Peter, are you sure about this?" Hiro eyed the empath cautiously.<p>

Peter smiled crookedly. "Sure. It's like riding a bicycle, these things are hardly forgotten."

Hiro sighed and reached out a hand, which Peter gladly took. A wave of color passed between their intertwined hands for a second and then stopped, signaling that the exchange had been successful. Peter disappeared and then reappeared behind Hiro. "See, it's like riding a bicycle," he said with a chuckle at Hiro startled expression.

"You know it would not have bothered me to be the one to take Claire to the studio," Hiro said.

"I know, Hiro," the corner of Peter's mouth lifted. "You have been of great help those days."

"A true hero never abandons a friend in need."

Peter laughed. "That's true, but you know Claire was the one who asked me to accompany her; she said that the Petrelli family should be together." His smile faltered for a second, the thought of Nathan crossing his mind. If he would have been alive, he surely would be with them too. He looked down sadly.

The Japanese man noticed the sudden change in Peter's mood. "I'm sure fly-man is very proud of both of you from where he is now." Hiro placed a gentle hand over Peter's shoulder.

The paramedic nodded once but then lifted a single eyebrow."Fly-man?" He inquired puzzled.

Hiro shrugged. "Old nickname; it kinds of stuck with me."

"Well I see you two are chatting like a couple of old ladies," Claire approached the duo, a lot more composed now after her outburst. After she recovered, she had decided to look for Peter herself. "Is everything ready?" She asked, eager to get out of the carnival.

Peter looked at her up at down; she was stunning. He once again wished Nathan could be there to see the beautiful woman his daughter was becoming. "You look great, where did you get the dress? I though you said there weren't appropriated clothes around here."

"Uh, well it was a gift from- it doesn't matter, really."

Peter raised an eyebrow in question but decided to let the subject drop for now."If you said so."

Searching around them, Claire frowned. "Where is Emma? I thought she wanted to come with us?"

"Unfortunately, Emma had to return to the hospital."

"Oh, right! She's a doctor, right?"

"A very good one. She took care of me when I was sick," Hiro added.

"Yeah, Emma is really special," Peter said. Emma was the most charming woman he had ever known. Hiro and Claire looked at each other, trying to suppress a giggle. The dreamy look in Peter's face said more than a thousand words. He straightened out, oblivious to the inner thoughts of his companions. He offered his hand to Claire. "Ready?"

Claire beamed. "I was born ready."

They waved and Hiro was left alone at the carnival's grounds.

* * *

><p>The jingle was driving Peter crazy. It was a pitch sound that was slightly off tune.<p>

_Seriously, if they want to increase rating, the stupid music should be a goner, _he thought, running a hand thought his hair out of habit. It was starting to get long again.

This was the fourth and final break of the show "Everybody loves Dyane" hosted by the pretty and charming Dyane Rivers –a manufactured blonde who lacked a brain but was very popular among men. During the show so far, a lot of different themes had been addressed - like the possibility of a wave of suicides in 2012. Definitely not the kind of show where Peter wanted to do this, but considering that all the 'more serious' shows had given its back to them – assuming all of this was a clumsy farce - the options had been short to nothing.

"Everybody loves Dyane" would have to do for now.

He shifted again on his uncomfortable seat located at the back of the stage. It goes without saying that the movement did nothing to relieve his stressed muscles.

Earlier that day, when they had barely set foot in the TV studio, a bossy brunette had taken Claire – practically dragging her - to what Peter assumed was a dressing room of some sort. "It's a measure we take with all the people we bring on to protect their privacy until the moment of revelation in front of the cameras," the brunette had said in an intoned voice. Peter could only assume she was the head assistant or something because she did not offer further explanation and sauntered over to a few sound technicians, yelling things that for the life of him he couldn't understand. Now, Peter was seated at the back, abandoned in a sea of frantic individuals yelling and maneuvering wires, with nothing better to do than to sit still, his back protesting against the hard surface of the plastic chair and having to listen to the obnoxious jingle over and over again.

A man could only stand so much without going completely mad.

Just as Peter was contemplating go over to the main console and do some serious damage, the brunette who had taken Claire away appeared in his line of sight again with a hand over her dramatically slim waist.

"Miss Bennet will be need at the stage in about-" She looked at her wristwatch. "- four minutes from right now, so if you could go and bring her here it would be greatly appreciated." Peter didn't have time to retort as the neurotic woman left, again leaving the paramedic with his jaw handing open. The woman shouted to some engineers on her way through the cluttered studio. "Could we turn up the jingle a notch or two? It's too low!"

Peter wasted no time and ran from there. "This is hell," he mumbled and went to find his niece. Finally reaching the long hallway, he knocked on what he assumed was Claire temporary quarters for the day as he read 'Claire Bennet' in bold black letters on the door.

"Claire it's me, Pete, come on now, it's time for your interview." He hoped she remembered all the things they had previously discussed; what things she could answer and what things not. But if she didn't, he could use this opportunity to remind her of some pointers.

The door opened a few inches, revealing the blonde's face."Hey-" She peered at him curiously. "-in a minute." She almost smirked before closing the entrance again.

"Okay," Peter murmured, puzzled. Maybe Claire was having seconds thoughts about all this; maybe she was nervous.

"Can you come in for a moment?" She called through the door a moment later. "I need help with something."

Peter hesitantly opened the door and entered the tiny room."Claire if you're having seconds thoughts, it's fine, I-" he felt a sharp pain in the back of his head and he clumsily turned around. Claire was behind the now closed door and the last thing Peter saw before being drowned in black was the leering face of his niece.

Claire let the heavy make-up container she held in her hands drop to the floor. She slowly bent down to look more closely at the man lying on the ground.

"Such a shame; you remind me of him," she whispered, stroking his tousled hair, her tiny hand came back red with blood. "But I'm on a mission, no time for fun." Getting up, she took a cloth and cleaned her hands, throwing the now-bloody piece of fabric away. With a sigh, she opened the door.

"Maybe in another time," she allowed herself to say before finally exiting the dressing room.

* * *

><p>Michael wiped his glasses on his shirt, put them on again, and rearranged his clothes the best he could. Sighing dreadfully, he marched ahead, a purpose moving his long legs to the door of the studio. Claude kindly – imagine that - had offered him the address earlier this morning, urging him on to go and talk to the famous girl, to let them know of his play in all this mess.<p>

"Hello, my name is Michael, I came here because I want your permission to let me use you as a lab rat to test my creepy ability… oh, and by the way, a war is coming," he murmured to himself.

Yep, he couldn't believe he was actually doing this.

_I must be losing my mind_, he thought, frustrated with himself at the unlikely situation he was voluntarily stepping in. He almost turned to leave right there but regretfully remembered the words of Claude, saying this was their best chance to win the war. A shiver ran down the length of his body at the thought. War, the ultimate way for humans to destroy amongst themselves. He took those fears and placed them into the depths of his chest, hiding them away. Gathering courage, Michael tried to open the studio door.

"Hey, what you think you're doing? You can't go in there," one of the security guards approached him.

"I-I need to speak with Miss Bennet," said the locksmith, inwardly cursing himself for his lack of wit.

"Who?" The officer counter back, then he gasped. "Ah the freak…" He shook his head amused. Michael felt his veins boil. "You and many more want to see her; you're just a bunch of perverts." He laughed. "Look, this time I'm going to make an exception; you get to get the hell out of here with only one warning." His tone was more than threatening. "Next time I won't be so kind."

Michael let go of the door without another word. The guard watched him until he disappeared from his line of sight. Turning around, he took a key from his pocket and secured the door, preventing this way from more intruders like the last one to enter. Once happy with his work, he continued on his way, whistling to himself.

Michael came out of his hidden place behind one of the studios and crept to the now-locked door."I bet I´m the first one to have one of these." He pulled a master key from his pocket; being a locksmith has some perks. With a move, the door opened in front of him with a click, allowing quick access to what he assumed was a long hallway leading to the recording studio.

Silently closing the door behind him, Michael began to walk down the hallway, looking from some clue to the whereabouts of the blonde girl. Luckily for him, the place seemed deserted. _They must be on the set,_ he thought and sighed, looking at the doors around him. One of them captured his attention; a piece of paper with the words 'Claire Bennet' on it.

"This must be my luckiest day," he mumbled. He knocked on the door but received no response, then he remembered his inner musing from seconds ago. _She must be at the stage_. Hesitating for a second, he decided that the best course of action would be to wait for her inside. He didn't want another security guard escorting his ass out of the compound.

He regretted his plan the moment he set foot inside. There was a man bleeding on the floor.

He took a few steps forward to get a better look; the man seemed unconscious or worse… dead. Determined to not find out if his guesses were true, he scrambled backwards, but stopped his movements when he heard a muffled scream. He didn't think it was the man on the floor. Focusing a little more, he tried to locate the sound. It came from the small closet.

Michael inwardly cursed himself; he shouldn't be here, this was bad, really bad. But he couldn't just leave, not now. With a quick movement, he opened the door, only to find a small woman on the floor, hands and feet bound, a bandage covering her eyes and a handkerchief obstructing her mouth. He frowned in confusion; this entire situation was so mess up. He took the bandage from her eyes and removed the handkerchief with trembling hands. He was left speechless for a moment.

"Claire Bennet?" He asked. It was the girl alright, the one he was looking for. Clearly disoriented, she lolled her head and she blinked several times to adjust her vision again. He put a hand on her shoulder to help her sit up. She stiffened at the contact and turned her eyes to him.

"Sylar?"She whispered, bewildered at him. He hesitated for a second before responding.

"My name is Michael," he corrected, smiling shyly.

* * *

><p>"Miss Bennet, it's about time you decided to show up; we're forty seconds behind schedule!" Claimed the production assistance, her brown locks bouncing back and forth as she searched around. "Where is the man that came with you?"<p>

"He left," was the only response she got back from the blonde.

The woman sighed and then nodded. "Okay… he didn't matter anyway." She took a clipboard and pointed towards her left. "Sit on the couch over there," she commanded. The host was already seated at her desk, being lathered with makeup. The young woman relocated herself as though in autopilot. The brunette eyed her curiously before being dragged back to her job again.

"Okay people!" Everyone took position. "We're on air in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1."

The obnoxious jingle was already on. The host looked at the camera.

"Welcome back to-"

A chorus rang in the background with, "Everybody loves Dyane."

"-with your favorite host, of course, to discuss the issues that matter the most in these days. Today I bring you the revolution of Youtube, here beside me, exclusively for this show, Claire Bennet." Sounds of applause erupted in the studio. "Miss Bennet, do you have anything to say against the people who think this is all a farce, portrayed by a young girl in search of attention?"

"Well, I would say that ignorant people are abounding in this world but I'm sure you must already know that."

Dyane smiled uncomfortably. "But you can't blame these people for wanting to be a little cautious, can you? After all, we can't believe everything we see."

"I think you're right on that one; people really need to see it for themselves." The girl gingerly pulled a blade from her décolletage.

The small audience in the studio grasped and Dyane looked nervously at her assistant who shrugged, at a lost. "You should warn someone before doing something like that," she said to the girl; this was not planned beforehand.

"Don't be nervous, Dyane, I brought this because as you said, people need to see more." She raked the knife along her flesh, producing a nasty cut that healed only seconds later in front of an astonished studio. The assistant beamed; their rankings must be on the skies right now.

"Wow," was all that Dyane could say. She cleared her throat; she needed to say more. "That's impressive, really impressive." She took hold of the healed hand to inspect the now non-existing wound. _Imagine having something like this, I would never have to worry about wrinkles again_, she thought, amazed. "We're in the presence of a miracle-" Her jaw hung open, and she gasped, coughing blood. She felt for her neck and her hand came bloody. Dyane's body dropped against her desk and the faux-Claire pulled the knife from Dyane Rivers neck, standing from her seat. Rivulets of red fluid cascaded down the knife in her hand.

She smirked at the camera. "This was Claire Bennet and that was attempt number-" She placed a bloody finger over her lower lip. "-oops! I think I've lost count." She gave a vicious sneer, her eyes glowing almost black. The cameramen, assistant, and people from the studio stood enraptured, paralyzed in fear and absolute terror, too dumbfounded to do anything for their host. The girl rushed from the set, leaving them with Dyane's corpse on the desk and millions of people watching the show back in their homes.

"Turn off the camera," the brunette absentmindedly signaled.

**TO BE CONTINUED…**

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Comments, thoughts, want to say Hi? let me know.  
><strong>


	5. REVELATIONS part 2

**A/N: So sorry guys for not posting this fic as regularly as I would want. Life has been stressing for me, I really don't want to leave any fic of mine discontinued but sometimes I need to leave the scene for a while and breathe. I have been suffering from a horrible case of writer's block with MNTSK and to add matters my laptop has been shutting off lately, so I'll probably had to leave it to repair or something. I don't know how much time is going to take, hopefully not much. I will try to deliver a new chapter for MNTSK as quickly as I can.**

**Sorry again guys, but know that I love everyone of you with all my heart *hugs all***

**Now that the pity party is over, I present to you a new chapter of this twisted story of mine.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER 5: REVELATIONS PART 2<strong>

**PREVIOUSLY ON THE SHOW MUST GO ON:**

_"I don´t need blood on my hands right now, Samuel," Nydia said to him but the words were meant to be a reminder for her. She didn't need it, did she?_

_"You know that isn't true. Besides, it wouldn't be exactly your hands." She felt cold hands enclosing her own and she slowly turned to look at him; Samuel smiled mischievously at her._

_Noah expelled a breath, trying to control his fleeting mood. "You're right. Samuel must have a contact in the city."_

_"Exactly," said Lauren._

_"Call your informant; it's time for a little old-fashioned investigation."_

_"Given the current circumstances I think it would be better for everyone if we could just start over."_

_"Are you crazy?" Claire spat. "You killed my parents; it was you! The same one who tried to kill me and did cut my head open!"_

_"Claire. Look, I know all that - believe me, my sins haunt me - but maybe it we started knowing each other and with time - look at Peter for example, he made an effort and he ended up forgiving me-"_

_"I'm not Peter!" She yelled out loud this time. "And I could never forgive you."_

_Sylar felt like she had slapped him. "But I'm a changed man," he mumbled to himself, looking down._

_Claire got up from the bench. "Then prove it! Because all I can see now is the man who tore my life apart."_

_Peter hesitantly opened the door and entered the tiny room looking for his niece "Claire if you're having seconds thoughts, it's fine, I-" he felt a sharp pain in the back of his head and he clumsily turned around. Claire was behind the now closed door and the last thing Peter saw before being drowned in black was the leering face of his niece._

_"We're in the presence of a miracle-" Dyane's jaw hung open, and she gasped, coughing blood. She felt for her neck and her hand came bloody. Her body dropped against her desk with a thud and the faux-Claire pulled the knife from Dyane Rivers neck, standing from her seat. Rivulets of red fluid cascaded down the knife in her hand._

_She smirked at the camera recording everything in tape. "This was Claire Bennet and that was attempt number-" She placed a bloody finger over her lower lip. "-oops! I think I've lost count." She gave a vicious sneer, her eyes glowing almost black._

_"Are you saying I use the girl as a lab rat?" Michael incredulously asked. "I´m not perfect, I've done bad things but I can't use someone like that."_

_Claude stormed up from the couch. "There is no time to discuss morality terms right now!" He was shaking. "This is survival 101 and if we're not in the wining team then we're going to die like the rest!"_

_Michael took a breath sighing begrudgingly. "Okay I´ll do it."_

_"Good. There is going to be an interview tomorrow morning and Claire will be the main star; you're going to go there."_

_"Claire Bennet?" Michael asked. It was the right girl, the one he was looking for. Clearly disoriented, she lolled her head as she blinked several times to adjust her vision again. He put a hand on her shoulder to help her sit up. She stiffened at the contact and turned her eyes to him._

_"Sylar?" Claire whispered, bewildered at him. He hesitated for a second before responding._

_"My name is Michael," he corrected, smiling shyly._

**AND NOW…**

"What the hell are you doing here?" Claire hissed. Her eyes fought to adjust provided only with the insufficient lighting of the closet. A lamp shone brightly hanging from the vanity mirror, and she blinked several times, her pupils adapting to the new environment.

Michael knit his brows together. "I think you're misplacing me for someone else, miss, my name is Michael," he droned, starting to fell conscious about their precarious situation. He quickly but carefully tried to help her to stand up, noticing the dilated pupils of her eyes. "You're probably suffering from a concussion," he mumbled and angled her head, trying to get a good look at it.

Claire straightened to her full height so quickly that she hit her head on the top shelf placed above her. "Don't touch me!" She shrieked shaking, trying to avoid conjuring memories from another closet not so far ago, but failing miserably. "You-you…_nut job_!" She settled with, fuming. Shaking in her rage, she pushed past him. Michael frowned even more as he let her shove him. "I should have known you would try and _ruin_ everything! God, they gave you a _chance_ and to think that I almost–" She stopped with a shaky breath. "–Peter!" Claire expelled. Noticing the other man lying on the floor, she gasped, knelling by his side, her quivering hands fumbling until they found the wound on his bleeding head. "What did you do?" She snapped while protectively holding her uncle's injured head in her lap, alternatively going from assessing the damage done and glaring at the taller man.

Michael stumbled back, abashed. His back collided with a wooden chair and he almost lost his footing. He stared wide-eyed at the floor. This girl was absolutely crazy. He just saved her, for God's sake! "I didn't do _anything_!" He defended himself. "When I came here, he was already there!" Oh he was going to have a long conversation with Claude for this; what he was thinking when he listened to him? The guy stole_ lipstick_ for a hobby, for God's sake! Clearly these people were demented as him and they mean only trouble.

Claire ignored him for the time being, focusing instead only on Peter. "His breathing is weak," she mumbled absentmindedly. Panicked, she looked at Sylar. "Stop staring, do something!" She billowed but the man was rooted to the spot and pale like a sheet of paper; she rolled her eyes. Most powerful man on earth her ass. "Give me the scissors." She extended her hand, but he just stared at her like she was speaking in gibberish. "There on the table!" She clarified with thinly veiled control; she had only done this once, although without giving her consent, but she hoped it would work. Hell, it _needed_ to work.

Michael didn't understand how in the world a pair of scissors could help in a situation like this; wasn't it better to call 911? But given the murderous look painted over face of the crazed blonde, he complied quickly, handing over the object requested without any verbal objection.

Claire took the sharpened item and with a skill that only continuous practice could offer, she sliced the flesh of her wrist, effectively cutting it to the bone. The precious red fluid started to flow copiously.

The locksmith watched the scene before him unfold closely. This wasn't the first time he got to see blood, _but hell if that isn't a big amount_, he thought. Without blinking or even a reaction of what Michael assumed would be the normal tell of pain, the tiny blonde smeared her bleeding wrist against the head of the other man messily, staining his shirt and hair even more. Michael cringed in distaste but for his utter fascination, he witnessed how the wound over the appalled guy's skin started to close, apparently on its own accord. His jaw hung open for a moment, his mind running in overdrive. _The Bennet girl not only heals herself but she can heal with her blood, too,_ he thought, astonished as he put two and two together.

As the wound closed, Peter started to cough shallowly, weakly, but he was certainly more alive than a minute before. Claire let out a relieved breath; for a horrible moment there she had seriously thought she was going to lose him: her beloved uncle, another member of her family, her emotional anchor. The color in Peter's checks came back and he slowly opened his eyes, groaning in discomfort as the brilliant lights of the vanity mirror hit him full on. He rolled his head a little and his eyes came to rest on Claire's. "Why did you do that?" He quickly scrambled from his niece's lap to glare down at her; his eyes were wide, full of shocked and surprise mixed with anger.

"Huh?" Claire furrowed her brow. "Peter, what are you talking about?" Puzzled, she rose from the floor.

"You attacked me, Claire," Peter accused, raising his hand to his head; blood smeared his fingers. "I thought you were having some sort of panic attack but you went all BTK on me."

"What?! I did no such thing!" Claire madly waved the scissors heat rising in her cheeks; Peter recoiled from her and she frowned before noticing how his eyes were glued to the scissors, she quickly lowered the item with guarded movements. "I just saved you," she mumbled dejectedly.

"I think–" Michael said slowly, gaining the attention of the other two. "–I can provide some clarity here." He sauntered in between the duo. "When I got here you–" He pointed to Peter. "–were on the floor and Miss Bennet here–" He pointed at Claire. "–was all tied up in the closet, so unless she could tie herself–"

"Sylar, why are you talking like that?" Peter interrupted, running his eyes on the other's man clothes to finally land them on his face. "And why are you wearing glasses?" He asked in sheer confusion.

Michael raked a hand through his forehead "This is seriously freaking me out." He stated in a hush. He, like the two others, could feel an incoming headache approaching. "Look my name is–"

"Freeze!" Someone shouted from the doorway. They all turned their attention to it. Half a dozen armed men stood at the door pointing their guns at them. One of the guards stared at Michael and snickered. "Oh I should have known you were one of them!" Michael recognized him as the same guard he had encountered before, now the man was firmly pointing a gun at him.

"Claire, take my hand," Peter whispered, his eyes trained on the men before them. Claire swiftly did as he told with as much care as she could muster given the circumstances.

"Freaks! Damn murderers!" A dark-haired guard yelled. "You think you were going to get _away_ with it?" He addressed Claire, full of disgust.

A hand snaked around Michael's shoulder; he let out a gasp, startled by the touch, his head snapping to the side. The finger of the guard pointing a gun at Michael wavered. Alerted by the small movement, he let out a shot. The locksmith snapped his eyes shut. The last he saw was the bullet relentlessly moving straight for his head.

The bullet hit the vanity mirror behind where they had been, shattering the glass into countless pieces.

"What the hell was that?" Stammered one of the cops, his breath ragged.

All of the men looked around madly. "They… _disappeared_ into thin air!"

* * *

><p><em>Yep, this place is too cold at this time of the year.<em>

That was in the head of almost everyone who sauntered in the park except for the lonely man who decided to defy this rule, sitting there. Moreover, a snowstorm could freeze everything for all he cared; he wouldn't notice anyway. Or he would but he still wouldn't leave his spot.

Sylar was hungry and not just the kind that could be satisfied with a good meal.

No, he craved blood.

From the very moment he left Parkman's prison, he had done all he could to ignore the incipient _itching_ at the back of his head, but it was starting to wear him out and the constant disdain of certain people didn't do anything more than to goad him on.

Despair and frustration were not the best emotions for those who were hanging on a thread, for those who sought redemption amidst a sea of dismissal. The hunger was sharpening its claws and he could do nothing more than to stare out at the barren landscape in front of him and feel how it squeezed his heart dry. Fighting was, to put it mildly, too difficult and he didn't know if it was worth the sacrifice.

The misty watchmaker had thought that with the help of Peter and the other _heroes_ it would suffice, but the kind nurse had more important matters to attend to than to _baby-sit_ him all day. As for the others members of this so called group:

Matt treated him like the dirt under his boot.

Ando was terrified of his sole presence.

Hiro… well he seemed to live in his own world of unicorns and rainbows, so he wasn't very helpful either.

Emma was nice to him but of course there was the fact that she didn't actually know too much about his shady history.

And Claire… well to put it into simpler words, she hates him.

He felt _rejected_.

Rejected the same as he had been when he was eight and the other children in the neighborhood would not play with him because he dressed too nicely to go to school and they said his mother was crazy; or when he asked Helen Barnes to the school's prom dance and she laughed at his face saying 'Please Gabriel, you don't have the money to pay for a limousine', as if that was the most important thing in the world. Yeah he didn't have the money, probably would end up wearing one of his dad's old suits, but he made up for that in dignity as he walked the halls of his high school ignoring the jabs and nasty comments. Yes, that had been Gabriel Gray.

But he was _Sylar_ now.

He had the means, the power to make them pay.

He could drag those children – now conscientious adults – who used to live in his neighborhood and shred them to pieces.

He could open Helen Barnes from the inside out and expose her greedy and rotten insides for all to see.

…He could return to the carnival and kill each person there just to see what made them _tick_.

"No," he mumbled, grasping at his head. "That's the hunger talking, not me, I've changed." But what had changed? What could he do? He tried to grasp the hands of his fading sanity as venomous words haunted his ears.

_"Then prove it! Because all I can see now is the man who tore my life apart."_

"Hey buddy, could you tell me what time is?" he actually heard it coming from his right side. Alerted, he stared at the man with cold, dead eyes who dare to interrupt his thoughts.

"11:35 AM," Sylar answered tersely. Knowing the time was something innate in him so he couldn't stop the words from spilling out.

The black-skinned man sat beside him on the bench. Apparently, he had a problem with boundaries or self-preservation because he had not detected the dangerous edge in the dark-haired man.

"Man, it's crazy out there." He pulled from his pocket a packet of cigarettes and proceeded to light one, turning to Sylar. "You want?" He prodded.

The watchmaker's hands shock in irritation. "No."

"Suit yourself." The solace-intruder shrugged and took a long drag of his cigarette, exhaling more smoke that would add to the already growing smog of the city and to contaminate the lungs of those non-smokers out there. Sylar growled.

"So you also decided to isolate yourself from the chaos of the city," commented the man as if he wasn't unwelcomed here. Apparently he was also kind of deaf, Sylar noted, and added it to the continuously long list of defects of this annoying fellow. The man leaned on his elbows "Shit, what we are going to do when those freaks start with the attacks?"

That definitely caught Sylar attention.

"What do you mean by that?" He looked squarely at the other man for the first time.

"Oh you didn't know?" He threw his half cigarette to the ground, eager to share the story. "Geez, man, it was on national TV! All the media has gone crazy over it."

"What was it?" Sylar asked urgently, losing his patience quickly.

"This chick, you know the one who jumped but survived, she just went all crazy psycho on TV and killed Dyane Rivers in cold blood in front of the cameras."

"Claire?" He asked with trepidation.

"Yeah man! Claire Bennet! Damn psychopath they should put her in jail–" An invisible force choked him and he stared wide-eyed at the man before him.

Sylar stood tall and menacing, a glare full of contempt on his face.

"She wouldn't do that," he hissed.

The guy, held down by the unseen force, shook with fear. He squeaked pathetically. "If you don't believe me, go and see for yourself; they're broadcasting it everywhere."

"Oh, I will," Sylar sneered. His hand hesitated in the air before he lowered it and shot up into the sky. For now he has more urgent matters to address than to deal with that dumbass.

"Shit," exhaled the man; his heart had yet to stop beating erratically. He reached for his cigarettes again.

* * *

><p>"–And we are not only out of medical supplies." The woman paused. Matt frowned encouraging her to keep talking. "We-uh-we need some other things." She gave him a pointed look; Matt gave her a blank stare. "You know." She looked aside, blushing some. "Feminine things," she murmured.<p>

The ex cop's eyebrow arched as he nodded quickly "oh right; it's okay, I get it." He smiled uncomfortably, scratching his neck to give his hands something to do besides the trepidation that came with the awkward moment. "Look, I know we need supplies but I can't let anyone out of this carnival until we wrap some things up, okay? We don't know for sure if it is safe out there for people like us," he added for good measure. The woman nodded slowly, taking in his words. Matt sighed. "I will talk with Peter about this when he gets here; see if we can't send a group to gather some stuff." He smiled encouragingly. The female carnie gave him one of her own and sauntered away.

"So you're the new leader now?" Edgar asked from behind.

Matt startled and turned. For a moment there, he thought of Daphne and how she used to always sneak up on him. Those were good times "No, just the guy in charge until Peter returns," he grumbled.

Edgar gave him a long look. "Are you okay?" He cautiously asked.

"Yeah man," Matt shrugged it off. "I guess I'm just missing my family, that's all."

"Well if everything goes smoothly, you will see them soon."

"I hope so."

A gush of air assaulted their faces, followed by the sudden presence of three individuals. Being accustomed to the impromptu jumps through space that Hiro used to do, Matt didn't even blink, unfazed by the sheer power of teleportation.

"Great to see you guys so soon. How did things go?" He prompted, anxious for news. Maybe he could go home sooner than he had estimated, he was eager to let all this behind him and move on. However, Sylar who oddly enough had gone with them suddenly fainted at their feet before anyone could say a word, his body fell heavily onto the dirt floor.

There was a dazed silence in where everyone just stared before Peter softly kicked the side of Sylar's torso. He was out cold. "_That_ answers your question," the empath said, addressing Matt.

"Wha-what is happening here?" The telepath inquired, looking at Sylar's prone figure on the floor. "Why-he fainted? Isn't he some kind of _super-man_ or something?" Confused, he gazed at Peter in search of answers but the nurse just sagged his shoulders, at a loss of words. It was in that moment that Matt noticed the caked blood in Pete's neck "Oh man, why do you have blood on your head?" He exclaimed, feeling more nervous with every second, this wasn't boding well.

"Listen–" Peter begun but then trailed off, searching for the right words to convey some understanding in this weird situation. However, there _weren't_ such words, so he settled for the crazy version. "–something happened. A psycho version of Claire hit me in the head." He cringed and delicately ran his fingers over his healed wound as if he could still feel the pain.

"And that same copy somehow did something to his head." Claire added, pointing with her foot in Sylar's general direction on the floor. "He is even crazier now than before." The corner of her mouth turned up, trying to put some humor in the situation. "Says his name is Michael."

"Also, it seems the _clone_ ruined Claire's interview but we're not sure what happened exactly," Peter finished slowly, explaining their misadventures and shrugging slightly.

Matt opened his mouth, and twisted his brow then shut it hastily. "It seems I'll not be returning home anytime soon," he murmured quietly. Suddenly, Matt got the impression he was like the same transit police official he used to be all over again. "Okay, so you-" He pointed to Edgar. "-take the insane guy splayed out on the floor and put him in some trailer; as much as I would love to leave him there, the people here are pretty nervous as it is. We don't want to make a fuss over things, we can deal with him later." Edgar circled his arms around the unconscious man waist and started dragging him out, making sure to go for the rock-strewn part of the ground; Edgar smirked at Matt and he just shook his head. "And you two-" He tilted his head towards Peter and Claire. "I want to hear every detail of what happened out there; we need to know what happened in that interview." _Didn't the carnival have a TV?_ He thought and stalked off hastily. The faster they could fix everything, the faster he could go home.

Claire and Peter looked at each other and then to the moving figure of the darkish man, lanky legs bumping with every rock on the un-leveled ground.

"Lead the way, buddy," Peter droned and started following Matt. Claire hesitated for a moment before sighing tiredly and following too.

From the look of things, it seemed they wouldn't be leaving the carnival for a while longer.

* * *

><p>"So, did you find anything?" Noah asked, leaning forward over Lauren's shoulder, the bright screen of the laptop flicked and glared at him back.<p>

Lauren shifted in her seat, sighing jadedly. "Well I was trying to make a list of the people who lives at the carnival - which is very difficult by the way, most have no records whatsoever or are fugitives from the law…you know people who 'want to forget and be forgotten' - when I found this." She opened a file; Noah leaned even more as he began to read.

"I recognize some of the names there," he said out loud absentmindedly. "They were on the list we were given when Nathan tried to do the round-up; those files belonged to the Building 26 project."

"Exactly. Apparently our charismatic friend gave shelter to some of those fugitives while you were _witch_ _hunting_." Noah glared at her over her shoulder; she smiled innocently. "Anyway, most of those specials are harmless but there are some whom are really dangerous."

"Now that you mention it, Doyle was there; we took him after the stunt at the carnival and he seemed very invested in Samuel's cause." He paused, thinking. "Do you think that these fugitives keep some kind of loyalty to Samuel?"

"Well most probably yes, I mean you don't bite the hand that feeds you." Lauren began opening some of the other files. "And some of those names are pretty powerful allies." She strolled through them "Here, this one. According to a report made by Danko, she was last seen with Samuel before disappearing from the face of Earth."

Noah peered at the photo provided by the file and the information attached to it. "Nydia Noir," he said the name out loud, seeing if it rang any bell, but he couldn't place the name. "Danko; sneaky bastard must had been hiding information from me."

"I wouldn't put it behind him," Lauren murmured. She turned her attention to the archive again. "This woman is practically a ghost, appears and disappears from the system easily, the little we got is that her father left her when she was young, her mother was unstable and had episodes of insanity, Nydia suffered from domestic abuse and when her mother passed away she was institutionalized in a shelter until she turned eighteen. She is suspected of murdering several men in Tennessee, Colorado and Nebraska but they've got nothing to prove it."

Noah was silent for a moment, processing all of the information. "What's her ability?" He asked.

"According to Danko's reports, she is an illusionist."

Noah inwardly flinched. He had meet an illusionist a few years back, Candice Wilmer, and the girl was disturbed in the worst ways. Ironically, she was murdered by another really disturbed person too. "Okay, focus your research in that area; if these people were helped by Samuel at some point then they would want to return the favor now. I'll deal with the illusionist."

His phone vibrated in his pocket and Noah took it out, frowning as he looked to the caller ID. It was Sandra, his ex-wife.

"Sorry, I have to take this," he muttered to Lauren, who nodded distractedly and continued with reading. Noah left the room and answered the call.

"_Noah? Tell me you're watching TV right now_?!" Sandra's voice was wild through the other line.

"No… I'm working on a case; is something wrong?"

"Oh my god-" A chocking breath could be hear across the line. Sandra's cries twisted Noah's heart like a stabbing knife. He didn't need more; with his cell phone still attached to his ear, he quickly entered the room again turning on the hotel TV and acquiescing in his ex wife wishes.

"Noah what's happening?"

"Shhh." He shushed. Lauren turned her attention to the TV. A reporter was talking.

_"…__we have the video tape from Dyane Rivers's show of this morning; a fair warning this video contains explicit scenes of violence so please refrain your children from watching it."_

**_On the screen Claire sticks a short knife in the throat of another blonde woman, the anchor, there is a collective gasp. The image is blurred and the next that can be seen is a close up of Claire's face._**

**"This was Claire Bennet and that was attempt number… oops! I think I've lost count."**

**_The video ended._**

_The reporter cleared her throat. "Claire Bennet, previously known for having survived a jump of 50 feet in the installations of Sullivan bros Carnival, was the executor in this live performance this morning, ending with the life of the so-acclaimed top presenter of Channel Six. It was reported by the crew of the Channel that the young Bennet woman fled from the scene of crime in the company of two men, Peter Petrelli-" __**A picture of Peter and Nathan, side by side, appeared on the screen.**__ "-brother of Nathan Petrelli, recently deceased US senator and another man who has not yet been identified. We ask for people to not approach these criminals alone. Please, if any of you see them, report it immediately with the closest authority; here are some numbers that-"_

Noah turned off the TV; phone still in hand, he collapsed heavily on the edge of the bed.

_"What did our baby do?"_ Sandra asked between sobs.

* * *

><p>Sylar roared through the sky at high speed. His velocity feed by his increasing anxiety. When he spotted the carnival, he came to a stop and landed heavily on the rough ground, walking purposely to one of the main tents. He disclosed the veil covering the entrance. His eyes landed on the backs of Matt, Peter and Claire, who were heatedly discussing something.<p>

He silently approached the trio and with induced wariness touched Claire's shoulder with the pads of his fingers.

"That's all I remember-"The blonde turned around when she feel the hesitant touch. "-Sylar?" She asked, puzzled.

His eyes were digging holes in her face. "Are you okay?" He murmured.

Claire frowned furrowing her hands warily. "Why would you ask that? Peter was the only one beaten." He gazed at Peter, his eyes fall to the bloody stain on his shirt; Peter wore a similar look of bedazzlement he noted, before his eyes landed on the blonde again.

"Ah look, at least sleeping beauty finally decided to join us," Matt commented wryly.

"Cut the crap Parkman, this is serious," Sylar spat. His eyebrows were pulled together. "Why did you do that?" He asked Claire.

The blonde narrowed her eyes. "If you're referring to what happened to Peter, I thought we had already clarified that I was not responsible."

"No, not that," he quickly said, although that was second on his long list of questions. "What happened at the interview…" He prompted for her to continue.

Claire scrunched her face. "What do you mean?" She tilted her head back and took a bated breath. "Do you remember what happened there?" She cautiously inquired.

"No I didn't see it… yet" Sylar eyed her curiously. Why was everyone acting so strangely? Peter and Matt were also looking at him oddly. It was starting to get on his nerves. _Better cut to the chase._ "I talked to a guy who says you killed a person in national TV," he blurted out.

Claire's expression froze. "Oh-kay," she said slowly. Her mouth moved upwards and before she could do anything, an irresponsible laugh escaped her lips. "Now you're sounding crazier than before."

Sylar pinched the bridge of his nose. "Look, where is the TV in this heel hole?"

"We're environmentalists," Edgar said as he joined them. The watchmaker just glared "But I suppose I can procure one," he relented disdainfully and disappeared in a whirl of air.

"Well, finally someone is moving," Matt observed.

Ten minutes later they were all seated in a big round table, their eyes pulled to the inconspicuous sight of the blonde, a look of wonder and astonishment in place.

"Don't look at me like that! It is obvious that _that_ one wasn't me!"

"It's true. Trust me I know, Claire's face when she is about to stab someone," Sylar mumbled vaguely. Now all heads turned to him. "What?! I'm an observer."

"Whatever," Claire whispered, not wanting to know more about the subject. "So, what do we do now?"

"Well, apparently we were sabotaged by a woman who looks exactly like Claire or a man; maybe it's a shapeshifter," Peter said deep in thought.

Claire's eyes were trained on Sylar "Maybe it was him," she mumbled under her breath, which obviously did nothing to deter from everyone around the table hearing her. "What? He was there when it happened! It makes sense."

"_Claire_," Sylar warned with a look of contempt. "First, why would I ruin your interview, huh? I don't want the world to hate specials, remember _I'm_ one too? And second, I wasn't there; after our little disagreement I spent all morning in the city."

"What do you mean you were not there? I saw you with my own eyes – Peter too."

"Sylar you were there," Peter cautiously added. "I teleported all of us back to the carnival before the guards caught us, don't you remember?"

He scrunched his face, annoyed. "I told you, Peter, I wasn't there."

"So who is the guy sleeping in the trailer?" Matt asked cautiously.

"The guy sleeping in the-what are you talking about?"

"Sorry to interrupt you guys-" Michael exclaimed from the entrance of the tent, feet moving about nervously. "-but I think I'm gonna get going this is _clearly_ not for me."

Sylar gaped and quickly stood from his seat. "_Holy mother_-who are you?!"

Claire's jaw hung open. "He said his name was Michael," she stuttered out.

"Oh my god," Matt said stunned, looking from Sylar to his Sylar-ish counterpart. "This is worse than any nightmare I could make."

**TO BE CONTINUED…**

* * *

><p><strong>LoL me and my cliffhangers *shakes head*<strong>  
><strong>As always,<strong>  
><strong>kisses.<strong>


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